J.A. Cuddy School is better than ever

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 18/09/2017 (3098 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

J.A. Cuddy School staff and students are enjoying improvements to the inside and outside of the Sanford school.

The school suffered extensive damage in a rooftop fire on Sept. 1, 2016. Classrooms were temporarily relocated to space within Sanford Collegiate, mobile classrooms and in community space. Two-thirds of the school was reopened in November but the final restoration and construction in a wing that contains the band and art rooms, library, student services area and two classrooms was finished over the summer.

“All the trials and tribulations were worth it,” said principal Scott Thomson, adding that the new rooms are spacious and attractive.

The library was opened up and more windows added. A new skylight brings natural light into the student services area. Sound reduction material was added to the band room. Thomson said LED lighting was installed in all the rooms.

“It’s really nice because we were cramped in a trailer and now we can play and practise in the new band room,” said Grade 8 student Gwen Bestland.

“We’re going to learn a lot more,” said Tucker MacKenzie, a Grade 7 student.

Thomson said having the extra space has allowed the school to add a piano and offer piano lessons. In the past, piano students had to go off-site for lessons.

At the same time the final work was being done inside the school over the summer, the Sanford Community Green Space project was taking shape in the large outdoor area behind the school.

An asphalt pad now connects the school to the play area, which includes an outdoor classroom, tunnel, hill, a climbing area, play equipment and a walking path that connects with adjacent streets, circles the border of the field and extends into the play area.

Community members volunteered to plant trees within the school grounds this summer.

“I’ve noticed people from the community already using the walkway,” Thomson said.
“We are enjoying the space and the newness of it.”

Green space committee member Sarah Bestland said, thanks to a variety of funding sources, business and private donations and fundraising done by the school’s Parent Advisory Council members and students, almost all of the project’s approximately $240,000 cost has been raised.

“We’re almost there,” she said.

Raised planting boxes will feature perennial flowers as well as vegetables to be donated to local food banks and samples of the agricultural field crops grown in the area, Thomson said.
Bestland said the committee is hoping for some rain this fall as they want to seed the field area to grass. Backstops will also be installed on the baseball diamonds.

Committee member Christine Kabernick said about half of the Green Space project’s funding came from public and private sources, including the initial $6,700 grant from TD Friends of the Environment. Other grants were $25,000 each from Richardson Pioneer, Co-op Community Spaces and Manitoba Community Places, $15,000 from the Farm Credit Corp.’s Agri-Spirit Fund, $10,000 from Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries’ small capital sponsorship program, $5,000 from Manitoba Ag Days’ community giving program, and $4,200 from Hometown Manitoba.
Thomson invites students, staff, parents and community members to come to a barbecue and open house event at the school on Tues., Sept. 26 starting at 5 p.m.

“We want to thank the community for its support for us relating to the fire and the green space project,” he said.