RancheView School Fundraising Society is happy to announce their long-awaited playground should be ready for play before the start of the next school year.

Raising $130,000 through fundraising initiatives as well as a recent provincial grant donation, the group was happy to report they have $255,000 to put toward the project.

For the past three years, the fundraising society has held bottle drives, raffles, and fundraising events in hopes to bring the K-8 students a playground that is fun and challenging for a wide range of ages. Although plans changed throughout the three-year process, Aaron Gertzen, President of the Fundraising Society says he is excited about the final reveal. "In the original plan we were going to do a fully accessible structure but in chatting with the school we decided we didn't need to go that far, the structure will meet accessibility guidelines anyways and if we end up with students down the road that need more, we can always look at adding. There are going to be some climbing walls and some really cool components; they tried to fit in as much as they can with maximum playability for the age range we have here."

playground

While parents and students of RancheView School were initially disappointed to learn they missed the cut off for playground funding as part of the provincial budget in 2017, it didn't deter them from rolling up their sleeves and forging on.

Although fundraising efforts may relax slightly the group will continue to raise funds for some smaller quick win items. "Our purpose now will shift to other things for the school like gym equipment and band equipment, we may be less aggressive with the fundraising as we don't need to raise the big dollar amount anymore but still keep the momentum. Our short-term plan is to move onto some other things the school would like."

Banff-Cochrane, MLA Cameron Westhead praised the fundraising efforts of all involved. "I just want to tip my hat to the parents who worked so hard to make this happen. As a government, it's easy for us to write cheques but the hard work is done by the parents who made this happen and I'm happy to support the work they did."

Knowing the group worked hard to come up with their portion of funds, Westhead was thrilled to produce a matching grant of $125,000. "It's a great day to help the parents who worked so hard to make this happen. Play is such an essential part of learning and to have a playground right here at the school for the kids to utilize and learn how to work together and play...I think it's a great day for the school."

The playground is slated to be installed in August and students at RancheView are beyond excited. "Part of the funnest days is when we put the pictures up and said this is exactly what it's going to look like. For the longest time, it didn't look like anything, it was just this fictitious thing. Once we put up pictures and had plans from the company they got really excited."