Fresh look for Valley Gardens CC

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This article was published 09/08/2018 (2841 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

After five years of planning and almost a million dollars in grants and fundraising, Valley Gardens Community Centre (218 Antrim Rd.) is home to a new, fully accessible playground and splash pad.

“The second it opened, it’s been full like this every day,” said Geoff Archambault, Valley Gardens Community Centre president, on a hot day in early August when both the playground and the splash pad were crawling with kids. “It’s been a great addition. We had a baseball diamond here, but it wasn’t used much.”

Originally proposed nearly five years ago, the new features cost $850,000. The project received $300,000 in land dedication reserve funding, a $100,000 grant from former Elmwood-East Kildonan ward councillor Thomas Steen, and a further $150,000 from the City of Winnipeg. A Canada 150 grant added $200,000 for the splash pad and $45,000 for the play structure.

New picnic tables and benches and almost a dozen new trees are interspersed among the greenspace around the two new play areas, and there is room to add a secondary, junior play structure if funding for the addition can be secured.

“In the evenings, you see the families come around, using the picnic tables, having birthday parties and stuff like that,” Archambault said. “It has totally changed the look and feel of the centre.”New fencing has also been added.

“Before, it was that tall (chainlink) fencing, but we felt that really cut us off from the community,” Archambault said. “This is more inviting.”

With an outbuilding — dubbed The Lodge — renovated and available for short-term rentals, the community centre has been a popular spot for birthday parties.

“This is unbelievable how much this has been used this summer,” Archambault said. “This brings people back to the community centre.”

In January 2017, Valley Gardens completed an overhaul of their washrooms, which hadn’t been changed since the centre was built in 1976, making them modern and accessible at a cost of $180,000. The City-Wide Accessibility Program and the General Council of Winnipeg Community Centres each contributed $50,000 towards with renos, while Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries chipped in $25,000.

This brings people back to the community centre.

“We wanted to do the bathrooms first, that was very important to us,” Archambault said. 

Up next for Valley Gardens is a complete renovation of their kitchen, bringing it up to code and making it fully accessible. The project, which began in July and is expected to be complete in the fall, has been made possible by grants from the General Council of Winnipeg Community Centres and a City of Winnipeg community incentive grant, along with a $35,000 contribution from the Valley Gardens daycare, which uses the kitchen daily.

“This will be great for the daycare and great for the community,” said Archambault.

Sheldon Birnie
Community Journalist

Sheldon Birnie is a reporter/photographer for the Free Press Community Review. Email him at sheldon.birnie@freepress.mb.ca or call him at 204-697-7112

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