The Building Sustainable Communities (BSC) program will allow a group in Pierson to do a $250,000 upgrade to their park.

In early May the province announced millions of dollars would be flowing to hundreds of projects across Manitoba. Pierson’s Recreation Rejuvenation committee picked up a grant for $75,000.

Sandra Clark is Chairperson of the committee and she says the grant allows them to go ahead with work later this year. “Our group was formed last fall in August of 2021 and it grew out of a covid discussion about kids not having enough recreation in our community when people weren’t allowed to travel. So we called a meeting and nine young people came forward and showed an interest in developing more recreation in our area.”

“We wanted to come up with something that was different and that’s part of our mandate to get more recreation services.”

Work is expected to start later this year on the project which Clark says consists of four components.

“We’re putting in a nine hole mini golf course, a 20 foot snow hill, cycling pump track and a half kilometer hiking trail. The pandemic showed us recreation facilities were more important than we may have recognized especially when we had to stay within our own community” said Sandra Clark.

The committee has done some other fund raising and has generated another $40,000 and plans to raise the rest of the money locally.

“We will hold a sod turning September 16th and that will be a fund raising barbecue. We hope to have everything ready to use July 1st of 2023. The community is starting to get revved up and we’re getting great local donations as well.”