Just prior to the start of the federal election campaign, Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo MP Cathy McLeod announced the Roe Lake and District Recreation Commission (RLDRC) was going to receive $41,270 to renovate the Interlakes Community Centre from the Canada 150 Community Infrastructure Program.
The program helps fund renovations, expansions and rehabilitations to existing infrastructure, with a goal of providing community and cultural benefits for the public.
We have been renovating the centre for eight years, says RLDRC president Wendy Chase.
“This federal support will allow us to finalize this rejuvenation and modernization, so we will have a first class community centre for our residents. What a great way of celebrating both the completion of the Interlakes Community Centre [ICC] and Canada’s 150th anniversary of Confederation.”
RLDRC treasurer Gyl Connaty says the Canada 150 funding will cover 50 per cent of the money needed to finish the ICC renovations that started in 2008.
She adds as they have been able to get capital funding, they have completed the next renovation project in the hall.
“If we get this grant plus $30,000 from the Northern Development Initiative Trust, we should, hopefully, with a little bit of money we have to put in, finish the hall.
Connaty says the Canada150 funding will allow them to complete the commercial kitchen, “which gives us the ability of doing anything and everything that we could possibly want to do.”
One part of the funding covers the purchase and installation of a cupboard to hold double wall ovens, an eight-foot pantry cupboard for dry food storage, a stainless steel counter for the four-burner propane cook-top stove and a three-foot griddle.
The other part of the funding will go towards the installation of an acoustical room divider that will divide the main hall from the smaller meeting room, which is currently not a meeting room.
“We don’t get to spend the money until April 1, 2016. We’ll have a huge celebration at the hall on July 1, 2017, so we’ll be celebrating Canada Day and the completion of the hall.”