United Way Disperses Funds

CHESTERMERE – The United Way/Chestermere Partnership Committee presented grant recipient cheques on February 3rd at the Chestermere Town Hall. There were 3 organizations that received the cheques.
First was the Mountain Bike Skills Park. Brandon Johnson and Toby Giles accepted the generous donation. Johnson and Giles also gave a presentation to the United Way/Chestermere Partnership Committee on Nov. 15th. The Bike Park is presently conducting a community consultation and hopes to proceed with hiring a design consultant in order to plan/build the site to be safe, all skill friendly, and open to all ages. The park is a vacant 4.3 acre parcel of land on West Creek Drive between the Rainbow Creek Elementary School and Our Lady of Wisdom Catholic School. It will be a park where kids can perfect their Mountain Bike skills with dirt jumps. The previous bike park was located in an area just behind the Safeway but had to be abandoned when the developer moved in to build townhouses. Melcor Developments were very generous to allow the bike park to be at the original location and are now helping out with funding of the new facility. Carolyn Christison, President of the Chestermere Rotary Club, said the Rotary Club has taken on the Bike Park as one of its main projects and contributed a fair share of the funding to start the development. Funds will be for specific costs and they are hoping a number of people will be able to volunteer their time to help offset the costs of labour.
The Chestermere United Football Club (also known as soccer!) was presented to Henry Faucher, President. They will receive grant money to assist in the CPR and First Aid training of their coaches to better their association and the 600+ players that receive the benefits of that training. Many coaches volunteer for other events and it will be a benefit to everyone to have them all trained. If there are funds remaining they will purchase other safety items.
The final presentation was to the Chestermere Public Library and its Board Chairperson, Marilyn King. The Chestermere Library Foundation will provide baby book bags for newborns and their families. The Book Pack Project aims to build strong foundations by exposing children to books and providing age-appropriate material to preschoolers at an age where they can begin to explore books both alone and with their parents. Gemma Noon, Library Director, has experience with a similar program and would like to see this literacy project for youngsters 3 and 4 years old take off. The overall goal is to ready these children for future school years and academic success.
All presentations were made by Nathan Salmon, Chairperson and Christopher Steeves, Member of the United Way/Chestermere Partnership Committee. All of the initiatives are to take place in 2013 within the community.