The parent council of Ecole James S. McCormick School in Lacombe are amping up fundraising efforts for a new playground for the school.  

In total, there are four wooden play structures on the school grounds that need replacing. Parent Council Board Chair, Renée Spelt does not know how old those structures are but knows the structures are in need of replacement. 

“We're trying to do it one playground at a time, starting with an all-inclusive accessible playground. That would be on the A-Den, so the main door side,” said Spelt.  

She believes replacement of the structures would benefit community as well as the school.  

“We often share playgrounds amongst the other schools. It's not just J.S McCormick that would utilize them. It's all three schools in that area as well as the public,” said Spelt.

The project is still being drafted but she expects the cost to be anywhere between $35,000 to $175,000. 

The parent council has approached the City of Lacombe before regarding the project and will be applying for some grants for the play structures.  

“We are applying for a couple of grants through the city like the ECHO grant but aside from that, we have reached out to one city councillor who is willing to kind of help us we just haven't connected on that yet,” explained Spelt.  

Spelt says the school’s parent council has created a playground committee that will be working on the fundraising efforts for the project. The first fundraiser of the school year will be a bottle drive running next week.  

“This is our first community initiative fundraiser that we are putting out to the community. It is running from October 2nd to October 4th along with our parent teacher conferences that the school is putting on. We will have a truck and a trailer out there to collect the bottles in the evening from 3:30 PM to 8:00 PM,” said Spelt.  

Anyone else who may interested in joining the Playground committee or helping out are encouraged to email Renée Spelt at ejsmcouncil@outlook.com.