The Glendon Arena is in need of a new ice plant to help keep the facility running.
After a $20,000 ‘band-aid repair' was completed over the summer, the Glendon Agricultural Society is looking for help to raise money for the new ice plant.
They haven't done many major repairs since 1974 when the arena was built.
“It's been limping along and we have had it assessed and we realize that yes we need to replace the whole unit,” said Stacey Sandmeyer, chair person of the fundraising committee.
The cost of a repair like this in the area of $461,500. The ag society is now starting to use different methods to raise this money. The MD of Bonnyville has given $156,000 towards this project and the Village of Glendon has provided $60,000. This leaves $243,500 remaining.
“I am trying to do some crowd funding for this, so we're using a company called FundRazr with social media to raise some money,” added Sandmeyer.
This facility is unique in the sense that it is used for ice hockey along with curling. It is also used by many different organizations in the community.
“The arena is our only youth centre in the whole village. It's used by the school as a part of their physical education programming. It's also used by multiple groups including minor hockey, the CAN-Skate program we have, we've got lots of adult teams that use the Glendon Arena as the home base,” added Sandmeyer.
The money given by the MD comes from their IMCP, a program that is used to distribute funds to the municipality's neighbouring communities.
“If you look at it, Glendon is the only area outside of St. Paul, Bonnyville and Cold Lake that has any facilities,” said MD of Bonnyville Reeve Ed Rondeau. “So the whole western end of the municipality is served by St. Paul or Glendon and huge number of the population goes there. I think it's very important to keep it because there is a lot of use, both in curling and ice hockey that use that arena simply because for one the facilities here are not available or in smaller leagues they can't really afford it so they use Glendon a lot more.”
MD CAO Chris Cambridge added, “If we can help keep hockey available in that area or ice services available in that area, then that's a wonderful thing for the citizens who live in that area. You don't want to have to come all the way to find ice service in Cold Lake or Bonnyville.”
The ag society is hoping to have the money raised in time for the ice plant to be installed for the 2017-18 season.
“We just thank everybody in the community for all their help and all the volunteers that run the arena. That's what we are, we are a volunteer community,” added Sandmeyer.
