Time to dust off your ski-boots.
Mount Timothy was given a cheque for $10,000 from the Northern B.C. Community Sport Development Society, an off-shoot from the dissolving Northern B.C. Winter Games.
“The buzz is on, Mount Timothy is going to open and we’re prepping to be ready for an awesome season,” said Debbie Dengel, one of the nine people who sit on the board of directors. “The enthusiasm is great this year because the community has risen together.”
The money comes at a good time, after the ski hill told the communities of 100 Mile House and Williams Lake the mountain would remain closed for the winter if $50,000 wasn’t raised by Oct. 15. The community responded, raising $30,000 through pledges, individual donations and a GoFundMe account in just a week.
“We can’t exist on just fundraisers anymore, we need more input from the community, from businesses, more corporate sponsorship,” said Dengel. “We’ve managed to work with fundraisers every year but you take a few years of low economy and equipment that is run down and if you go so many years on a shoestring budget you can only go so far.”
The fires during the summer also made fundraising and getting work done on the mountain difficult. Hill manager Caroline Sherrer says the sales of season passes have also contributed to the mountain’s financial woes.
“We’re having financial issues mainly due to the fact the season pass sales are not happening they normally would this season and you have would have to attribute that to the stress put on these communities due to the events of the summer,” she said. “This replaces that lost income from season passes we normally see.”
The $10,000 will go into the opening, operating costs, machine and infrastructure maintenance.
“We’re just really running and hitting the ground hard trying to get everything finished,” said Sherrer. “Hopefully the next thing to show up is the snow.”
The Northern B.C. Community Sport Development Society supports grassroots sport development programs within Northern British Columbia, as well as supporting athletes, coaches, volunteers and officials get opportunities with further training and experience in their chosen sport.