With the purchase of six portable, backpack sanitizer sprayers, the Keystone Centre has improved its position to re-open safely to the public. These new sprayers will allow the Keystone Centre’s operation and events teams to efficiently, and effectively clean high-contact areas of the building.

“Being able to re-open efficiently comes second only to being able to re-open safely,” says Jared McKenzie, director of marketing for the Keystone Centre. “These portable, lightweight, backpack sprayers will allow us to do both as we welcome the community back into the Keystone Centre.”

“The generous support of the Government of Canada’s Emergency Community Support Fund, and Brandon Area Community Foundation on this project puts the Keystone Centre in a proactive position as we go through the process of re-opening,” he shares.

“Brandon Area Community Foundation (BACF) is very pleased that the Keystone Centre received a grant from the Federal Emergency Community Support Fund Initiative,” stated Laura Kempthorne, executive director of the Brandon Area Community Foundation. “We felt this grant was essential for the Keystone Centre to secure the proper safety equipment. This equipment gives them the ability to sanitize the building thoroughly, in turn keeping everyone that will utilize the facility safe.”

 “We know that the timeline for re-opening the Keystone  on any sort of serious scale is still sort of still a bit of a long game, but these backpack sprayers at least makes it possible for us to accommodate people a lot sooner than we normally would.”

McKenzie says Keystone staff have been delving into what’s available to them to come back from COVID closures, including sanitizing equipment like this.   “over the past year, since the start of COVID Pretty much everybody on our team has been taking a lot of time to educate themselves on this type of equipment and different protocols and really trying to prepare us for what’s the world going to look like post-COVID.”

“We know a lot of things will go back to normal, but some things just won’t,” he adds, “and being prepared for that with equipment like this and increased cleaning is going to be a necessity.  So, everybody has been thinking forward; thinking ahead to what that will look like.”

With these new safety strategies in place, McKenzie says they’re looking forward to having their doors open to the public once again, even if that be on a smaller scale.