Students at Cassie Hall may soon have a little more to do on the playground as $12,000 spent on equipment has just been reimbursed to their parental advisory council (PAC) from the province.
The Ministry of Education made the announcement on Dec. 7, and Cassie Hall was not alone on the list as nearly 2.4M was given out to 31 school districts in B.C. to reimburse recent works on school playgrounds paid for by PACs.
“I'm delighted that the government has recognized with money that students should have a lot of money for physical activities,” said Coast Mountains board chair Art Erasmus. “Advocating a playground fits right into that.”
Chair of Cassie Hall's PAC, Connie Yasinchuck said she is very excited to hear of the windfall, saying upgrading the playground is something the PAC thinks is really important to the school.
“Our playground was really sparse for little ones, we have been trying hard to get some age appropriate equipment,” she said.
They recently purchased an orbital spinner, which Yasinkchuck hopes will be installed by the spring.
Yasinchuck said the spinner cost $10,000 and the PAC had budgeted another $2,000 to pay district staff to install it.
Now with the return of that money, Yasinchuck said the unexpected $12,000 will open up doors for more additions to the playground as well as some of the other things on the PAC's to do list, such as updating the schools recycling program.
“I am excited, we are going to have such a blast filling in the holes in our playground, this is going to be fabulous,” she said.
She points out that there are no other playground for children in the Southside and that youngsters attending Strongstart at Cassie Hall also make use of playground.