Island Lakes opens splash pad, celebrates 25 years

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/07/2015 (4020 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Island Lakes  community came together on July 7 to celebrate the official opening of the new splash pad in Lindsey Wilson Park along Island Shore Boulevard, behind Island Lakes Community School.

At the same time, the Island Lake Residents Group (ILRG) commemorated Island Lakes’ 25th anniversary.

To make sure the event was properly celebrated, the ILRG worked for months in advance to co-ordinate food and ensuring local dignitaries would make special appearances. The ILRG prepared invitations, enough to ensure all residents knew of the party and were able to attend. A call for volunteers was sent out via Facebook to deliver the invites.

Without doing a proper or efficient head count it was easy to guesstimate that approximately 400-500 people (big and small) attended the event between 5:30 and 7 p.m.  It was a strong turnout and it was exciting to see the community come out and celebrate. Especially with the children there,  as they didn’t care about the party — they just wanted to play on their new splash pad!  

Once the majority of the hot dogs were handed out (attendance was higher than expected so a couple of hotdog and condiment runs were required), the portable PA system came on as Mr. Lindsey Wilson kicked off the speeches.

He pointed out that, through fundraising and residents’ fees, ILRG was able to raise $35,000 for the picnic shelter in the new splash pad space.

“Everyone needs to be involved and with paying your residents’ fees, such projects like this in our community are made possible,” Wilson said.

Then he introduced the ILRG board : Wayne Lymburner, Marc LeMaistre, Terry Bais, Helen Lymburner, Rachel Moore and Brendan Mahatoo.

Also in attendance were former St. Boniface city councillor Dan Vandale current area councillor Matt Allard, and Erin Selby, MLA for Southdale.

Selby led the crowd in a countdown from 10 to 1 to declare the splash pad open, and then led a singalong version of Happy Birthday to congratulate Island Lakes on being 25 years young!

Jasmine van Gerwen is a community correspondent for Island Lakes. She can be reached at jasvangerwen@shaw.ca