Glendon School's award winning athletes haven't been training on a track, they've been using the road.
According to Daryn Galatiuk, athletic director for the school, the Glendon Outdoor Leisure Development (G.O.L.D.) has been a long-time coming.
“It’s important just because of the lack of true facilities for our community, and not just for the school, but for the Village of Glendon itself. There’s not much to do for anyone who’s older. There aren’t any outdoor recreation facilities for usage in our community,” he expressed.
This was one of the reasons why they created the G.O.L.D. project, with plans to build a multi-use outdoor facility right behind their school.
The estimated $781,000 design includes an eight-lane shale track, two baseball diamonds, long jump and triple jump, a soccer and football field, outdoor basketball, beach volleyball, a tennis and pickleball court, shot-put, discus, javelin, and a high jump and pole vault area.
“Like a lot of our schools, in particular when it comes to our smaller, rural schools, there are challenges in being able to offer certain programming,” Nicole Garner, communications officer for Northern Lights Public Schools, detailed. “One of the things that Glendon School has encountered issues with is providing extracurricular and physical education programming at the location."
The kindergarten to Grade 12 school only has one gym, making it difficult to "get every class of kids through there," added Garner.
In order to offer certain programming, students have to be bused to other communities, which comes at a cost.
Garner said it's incredible what Glendon School's athletics program has been able to achieve with what they have.
“They’re known for having an excellent athletics program. They’ve won track and field provincials I don’t even know how many times now… In their community, they don’t have a great place to be practising, it’s pretty amazing what they’ve accomplished without having access to the tracks that we have here in Bonnyville and in other communities,” she expressed.
During the MD of Bonnyville's latest council meeting on Wednesday, Nov. 28, they approved providing up to $500,000 for the project through their new funding program.
“This is going to be funded through the Legacy Fund, which is taking tax dollars from industry and funnelling them directly to infrastructure projects that are going to be long-lasting within the region,” Reeve Greg Sawchuk explained.
Sawchuk said the school will use the money to apply for a matching grant, after working closely with the municipality's grant specialist.
The fact that the facilities will be utilized by not only students, but the community as a whole, is one of the reasons why it was a perfect fit for the Legacy Fund, he added.
“Glendon has long been in need of a proper track. They have a history of producing top-quality athletes without having the necessary facility. The fact that kids are out there running on the streets, that’s probably not the best thing to be doing."
For Galatiuk, getting assistance from the MD was heartwarming.
“I can’t say enough about the support that we’ve received. This has been an about 19-year pet project to try and create something for our kids and community. To finally see this come to fruition is absolutely amazing."
Maureen Ference, Glendon School principal, agreed, “To see the commitment of the MD of Bonnyville to the vision that our school and community had, is truly appreciated."
Glendon School doesn't have a strict timeline at this point.
Garner said now that they have the financial support from the MD, they will start working on a timeline and determine what else needs to be done to get the project up and running.
"The MD was so generous, it puts us ahead of where we even thought we would be at this point."
