East Wheatland applies for Kraft Project Play

Justin Seward
Times Reporter

 

The communities of Gleichen, Cluny, Hussar, Rockyford and Standard have teamed up to form a bid in hopes of winning a grant worth thousands of dollars.
Kraft Project Play is a grant to help build a better future by building better places for any athlete. The grand prize community winner will get $250,000 while three runner ups will get $25,000 towards the recreational complex of their choice.
The combined bid, spearheaded by Kathryn Stewart-Brown, who took the initiative to submit an application for the communities to try to win the money, will provide the East Wheatland Committee with funds for the new school’s gym upgrade.
The categories available for an application were soccer, baseball, hockey and play.
Stewart-Brown’s decision on choosing the play category was based on its possibility of encompassing numerous sports. Judges will have their say, and then the public can vote for the finalist online.
“Really it was pretty easy to do the nomination part of it,” Stewart-Brown said.
“We are all on board, we want to see it. Everybody wants to know when they can vote, I’m like you can’t vote until we make it to the finals.”
She identified that with recreational activities being popular in these towns, that, they want to see the new East Wheatland School’s gym accommodate more than just a single class at a time and be able to host an event on the bigger stage, such as provincial volleyball and basketball tournaments.
“We just said with the amount of sports that we want to offer in the school that we don’t have anymore, we don’t have sports teams going to tournaments because we lost our high school,” she said.
“We want to get that back for the kids and having this gym be larger. We have the opportunity to host provincials and have intramurals with all the communities to have the ability to have a partake in whether it’s adult volleyball or stuff we currently don’t have.”
She outlined specifically the square footage that they had to work with in the gym where they will use the money.
The money would go towards the gym’s retractable bleachers and the special flooring to support them, while the funds will also go towards a proper score clock, backboards, and athletes’ seating.
The total cost of the gym is $500,000, and the possible winnings could cover half the costs.
The East Wheatland Committee has raised $180,000, and $111,000 of that is dedicated to the gym.
The finalists will be announced on July 26.