Crawford Bay Community Park receive $20,000 surprise from BCAA
By Nelson Daily Staff
It’s never great to finish in third place.
However, organizers of Crawford Bay Community Park are ecstatic after receiving $20,000 in the British Columbia Automobile Association (BCAA) Play Here Contest.
The prize was a complete surprise for Crawford Bay organizers after Lillooet REC Centre and Torquay Elementary playground in Victoria were awarded the grand prizes of $100,000.
“We’re completely over the moon for the generous runner up prize,” Ellie Reynolds of the Crawford Bay committee told The Nelson Daily after hearing the great news.
“For a community of our size we’re really happy for the people to voted so generously for our project.”
Reynolds, who was in the Creston Hospital after giving birth to the families third child when the announcement was made Monday, thought Crawford Bay was out of the running when the two front runners from Lillooet and Victoria built up the insurmountable lead 10 days into the competition.
However the provincial Automobile Association decided award $20,000 to the other three finalists — General Block Elementary in Vancouver, Windsor Elementary in Southwest Vancouver and Crawford Bay.
“BCAA has outdone themselves with their generosity,” Reynolds said.
Crawford Bay was one of five finalists in the BCAA Play Here contest.
Chosen from over 400 entries province-wide, Crawford Bay Community Park, located on the East Shore of Kootenay Lake 35 kilometers north of Nelson, is outdated, in bad repair, unsafe and uninviting, making it an underused resource rarely frequented by local and visiting young families.
“We’ve been inspired by the passion of our finalists, and wanted to make a big impact for children in all five communities,” says Shom Sen, President & CEO, BCAA.
“Thank you to all British Columbians for voting, and to BCAA and Evo Members for making it possible for us to make such a positive impact for so many children.”
Reynolds said, thanks to the BCAA donation as well as the community fundraising, organizers of the Crawford Bay Community Park plan on breaking ground in September.
Excavating pathways is the first part of the project followed by building hills for slides and tunnels with the remaining money going toward playground equipment.
“We have a pretty flexible volunteer group,” said Reynolds, hoping to access more grants in the area to raise the total to the $90,000 figure needed to build the dream park.
“We’ll look at the funds we have build what we can and if we can’t get everything we want now we can always add more parts to the park later.”
