Following questions of ownership being resolved, the indoor playground at the former Parkland Crossing is being relocated to the heart of the city later this spring.
Dauphin Neighbourhood Renewal Corporation, which was gifted the structure by the Church of Christ last April, will provide a new home for the equipment in the auditorium of the DNRC Community Center on Third Avenue Northwest.
“We have quite a significant addition that we’re fund-raising for and filling out grant applications for, in addition to the original structure,” said DNRC executive director Amanda Novak, adding the organization will host an open house, Mar. 10, to share its plans and details of a fund-raising campaign.
“It’ll be quite a bit bigger. It’ll be about another 35 per cent to 40 per cent bigger than what it was at Parkland Crossing.”
Novak added DNRC is currently working with the manufacturer Orca Coast Playground Ltd. on design of the addition and the logistics of moving the existing playground.
“They have to come out and disassemble it. Then we’ll have to transport it here and reassemble it in our facility,” she said.
The decision to move the structure to the DNRC Community Centre was an easy one for the organization, Novak said. Not only does the facility offer more space for the playground, it can still be available for low-cost rentals by families and for free play sponsorships by community organizations.
“All of that is going to continue. But we’re hoping to even build off of what was there. We’re hoping to have it open to the community for different activities and programming and stuff throughout the week,” she said, adding having the playground on site will also facilitate easier management of bookings and allow DNRC to incorporate the playground into some of its existing programming.
“We’re looking at expanding our youth employment readiness program and offering them first job type exposure, mentoring exposure, with maintenance, janitorial, administration with the booking and everything that goes with that,” Novak said.
“Sometimes it’s not easy to have those types of jobs. Not all employers want to take on that responsibility. So, if we can have the opportunity to integrate it into our own facility, we feel like would be great because that’s one of our areas of emphasis. It’s an opportunity we can give to our youth. With all the fallout from all of the different things that are going on in the world, like the pandemic, these types of opportunities are really valuable.”
The playground must be removed from its current location by May 31, and Novak said a steering committee is busy working on the logistics of that.
“It’s made up of members from Fusion Credit Union, somebody from Rotary. DNRC. We’ve got South Parkland Healthy Child Coalition representation,” she said.
“That steering committee is going to be the ones working with us and helping us get this rolling, marketed rolled out throughout the community so that we’re able to have the funds in place to get (the playground) over here by the end of May.”
