Fundraising for the Deloraine-Winchester Aquatic Centre has been strong through community support, and provincial grants!

Economic Development Officer, Glenn Schellenberg, says they received $300,000 through the Building Sustainable Communities Grant earlier this summer, as well as $100,000 from Tundra Oil & Gas.

"Tundra has been good to us in the past so we're always happy when the corporate members of the community come and support the family, so that was very welcome to receive and very generous of them," shares Schellenberg.

"There are also some municipal funds that we're able to tap in as well," he notes, "but we're also looking at other corporate donors, whether they're local businesses or regional businesses, we've got a few irons in the fire, but we're still waiting to hear back on those."

Schellenberg says all donations, whether large or small, all add up and contribute to the funding bucket. This includes residents and local organizations.  Local businesses have been very supportive as well!

"Boundary Co-op is an amazing company that gives back to their communities," he adds. "We look to them for funding for projects like this, and any way that we can tap into their community spirit.  But they do so much without us even asking and I'm quite impressed with that.  They want to support their communities that they operate in.

And that's just one example," he says. "That's the same thing with the Credit Union, and that's the same thing with some of the local businesses that we can tap into those resources, whether that be employees or supplies, or whatever that might be in the broader community.  They want to give back.  They want to support community."

The Deloraine pool project is estimated at $2.2 million but Schellenberg feels they'll come in under budget, and as far as fundraising goes, they've done very well.  Also, they have made changes to the original plan which will also assist in bringing that $2.2M down.

"We are over 50 % of our total budget, so we're very excited about our project being a fully funded project without having to tap into any kind of a tax levy.  That's always been the goal and is really a goal for any community project. You don't want to create a tax burden for any new projects but we're very optimistic that we'll be able to meet that total budget without having to increase any taxes."

"And so, we make sure that we've got either funding for, or fundraising ideas in place so that we can achieve that, and I'm 100% confident that we will."

Please listen to more with Glenn Schellenberg below!

In response to Canada's Online News Act and Meta (Facebook and Instagram) removing access to local news from their platforms, Discover Westman encourages you to get your news directly from your trusted source by bookmarking this page and downloading the DiscoverWestman app.