The Prince Albert Roman Catholic School Division announced this week that Ecole St. Anne School will receive a $50,000 Saskatchewan Parks and Recreation Association Grant.
The funds were used to upgrade playground equipment at the school.
“We are super excited about this project,” Ecole St. Anne Principal Kathy Gaudet said in a release. “Our School Community Council, parents, and students at Ecole St Anne School have worked diligently to raise funds. It is so satisfying to know we received the grant.”
On Sept. 9 the Province of Saskatchewan announced at $3.75 million dollar annual investment to enrich outdoor play spaces. Parks, Culture and Sport Minster Alana Ross said at the time that the grant will be administered in partnership with Saskatchewan Parks and Recreation Association (SPRA).
Ecole St Anne School was recently notified of the approval. Gaudet said the playground gets lots of use, so the grant funding is appreciated.
“Any time of the day and any day of week you will see students, families and young children playing on this new playground,” she said. “This grant will help reduce the future fundraising burden of the SCC, and parents. It will assist in having the SCC resume the improvement project priorities for their school.
“This grant is a great idea,” she added. “Thank you to the Government of Saskatchewan in recognizing that playground equipment is valuable toward student learning and development.”
“I am excited that children of all ages will benefit from using this equipment,” Jeanette Murphy, Chair of Ecole St Anne School Community Council, said. “I got involved in the SCC to provide opportunities to the children of Ecole St Anne School such as these and to help in any capacity.”
Ecole St Anne School has been fundraising over the last few years to support this project and had demonstrated the matching funding for this grant in order to apply. Eligible project expenses incurred on or after April 1 were eligible to apply to receive the matching funding. The students have a new place to play as the playground was constructed in July.
“Our school had applied for a loan and had used some of their SCC dollars and fundraising to pay for this,” Trumier said. “Their application then will help them resume their other projects.
Trumier was pleased to see the SCC’s financial burden lessened after receiving the grant so they can put the money towards other projects.
“They can basically get themselves back to square one and be ready to fundraise on the other projects,” she said. “St. Anne School has done considerable amount of fundraising, so they had done a lot of work already and they were using that to build the playground that they have.”
“The dollars here will reduce that burden on the SCC’s commitment and they will be able to resume their other projects as they had planned. They had prioritized this one first, so this is a perfect opportunity to apply for the grant.”
