A pair of donations totalling $10,000 has made a nice splash towards the 100 Mile House Waterpark Society’s push to build a spray park in Centennial Park.
The group has raised $76,000 for the estimated $150,000 splash pad project, which includes a rain deck and colourful showers and ground nozzles, and is a big hit with families and children in the hot summer months.
Best case scenario: the group will have the remaining funds in place, including donations in kind from local contractors, to start construction in the summer of 2016, explains Jamie Hughes, president of the 100 Mile House Waterpark Society.
It was learned in July that if the group raises the remaining funds it needs to build the splash components of the park by the spring, the Cariboo Regional District will cover installation of a corresponding lift station in Centennial Park.
“That takes away $150,000 of the project that we don’t have to worry about,” says Hughes. “It felt like someone just took an elephant off my shoulders when we got the approval for the lift station.
“Just in this week alone, the money seems to be coming at us now. We’re the ones getting calls now from people asking how much more we need. Everyone is on board and it’s awesome.”
The recent donations came from two sources – Success By 6, a multiparty early childhood development initiative, and Rod Dillman Contracting, a local logging business.
In the last few years, the Waterpark Society has held a variety of fundraising events, including outdoor drive-in movies for families. The group currently has applications in for thousands of dollars in grant funding and is taking another crack at the Aviva Community Fund, an online voting competition that funds projects of benefit to Canadian communities.
“Basically right now, because we are at the tail end of the project, we are really working hard and hitting grants,” says Hughes.
“We still want to do another drive-in movie event next year – hopefully as a grand-opening type thing.”
