WAPELLA — The Wapella Community Development Society (WCDS) recently purchased a new gazebo at Wapella Centennial Park, due to the old one being damaged by weather conditions.
In addition to the new park attraction, the community initiative group has also been working on other town projects to advance the area’s recreational activities.
“We have a park that was dedicated 20 years ago, I think it coincided with Saskatchewan’s anniversary in 2003,” said Tammy Statz, board member of WCDS.
“We call it a memorial park because we have little stepping stones in there. There are names of people whose relatives wanted their names to be remembered.
“We put flowers at the park and had a gazebo there, but last year we had a big storm and it took our gazebo and smashed it.
“Recently we’ve managed to strum up enough money to put another gazebo up at the park, just to replace the last one, because it needed to have a nice sitting area.”
WCDS had fundraised money over the years to be able to purchase the new gazebo, which was recently installed at the park a few weeks ago.
“We probably used the last of our money to put it up there,” she said. “There will be more fundraising required.
“We’ll be doing the upkeep of the gazebo. Right now our volunteers are just cutting it and taking care of the flowers, and trying to just keep it beautiful.
“The park is used by the library a lot, if they have an outside function as part of their programming.
“In the past, we’ve had music in the park. We haven’t got that going for this year yet, and we’ve had farmers markets held there as well.
Local group looks at repairing town hall
Statz said WCDS’s main focus is to maintain the park and other public spaces that are well-utilized by people in the community.
“We also run the Bingo in town, we look after the laundromat, and we’ve just recently taken the park under our wing,” she said.
Right now the community hall—where bingo is held on a bi-weekly basis—is in strong need of repairs.
“The hall needs work. It’s quite an old building and needs quite a bit of attention,” said Statz.
“It’s actually costing us a lot to keep it heated during the winter months.”
With bingo being big in the community, Statz said it has helped cover the costs for the hall.
“We usually have bingo every second week, we have between 20 to 30 people at it,” she said.
“But, it’s what’s paying the utility bills of the hall. It’s the building that used to belong to the legion, but now the Wapella Community Development Society (WCDS) took it over.”
Statz said the group is looking for feedback from the community before moving forward on repairing the hall.
“We just put a survey out to the community to see what the community members felt we should do about it,” Statz said.
“Because we have a few other facilities in town that we could maybe join up with, or rent from for some of the programs that we run out of our community hall, we didn’t want to make that decision on our own. We wanted to have community input to make sure everyone was on side with repairing.
“We’ve heard back from a lot of people. We’ve got about 40 responses to our survey right now which is through Facebook mostly, and we have paper surveys sent out to businesses in town.”
Statz spoke about what the next steps are for the WCDS in moving forward with the hall.
“We’re going to wait and see what the community tells us to do about this building,” she said.
“We’ll see if people want us to keep it, and if people are willing to put their hand in and join the board to try to fundraise for it.
“If there doesn’t seem enough interest or enough help, we might have to let the building close down. Therefore, we might have to look for another venue for bingo and other events.
“Lots of people also use the hall for birthday parties for their kids, I think the local AA group uses it weekly, there’s a few different things that go on there during the weeks.”
In need of volunteers
With the Wapella Community Development Society being part of the community for decades, Statz said they are always looking for volunteers.
“It’s hard getting commitment from people. Everyone’s busy so we understand,” she said.
“The young community here, they’re all working full time and raising kids and the last thing they want to do is volunteer at something, but the bingo numbers are starting to come up again.
“We’re just going to put it out there and hopefully see if we can get a few more volunteers with fresh ideas on what to do with the hall.”
