The end of a long series of fundraising events is in sight for members of the Mapleton Splash Pad Committee.
While the committee has a couple of fundraisers yet to run, including the 3rd annual Touch-a-Truck event on May 26 from 9am to 1pm at fairgrounds in Drayton, the group could be excused if they let out a collective sigh of relief after a special council meeting on May 15.
With council agreeing to foot the final bill for $31,000 to hook up the finished splash pad to water services, the project is unofficially accounted for.
Including a $150,000 Ontario Trillium Foundation grant, the committee has secured a total of $286,000 in funding for the facility, including a little under $50,000 in total municipal funding.
That’s a lot of movie nights, raffles, talent shows and sponsorships for a small group consisting largely of local Rotarians and Kinettes.
It’s been roughly five years since this diligent group began fundraising for a facility that will surely be a boon to Mapleton’s many young families. A long haul to be sure, but one that, as Rotarian and committee member Lorrie Spaling noted, is “worth it, to see the kids happy and to enhance our community too.”
The fundraising feat is all the more impressive given the recent, and largely simultaneous, community fundraising for another major youth facility: the Drayton Skate Park, completed in 2016.
It takes many dedicated volunteers and a generous community indeed to pull off two such projects in a community of this size. There are many larger communities with neither a splash pad nor a skate park.
Congratulations to all involved.
