Over the past year the site of the former Sweaburg School has seen many changes and will continue to see more to come during 2013. Our first order of business was to name our new park. Through public consultation it was decided to name the park the Captain (T.F) Tommy Williams Park, after our own Sweaburg native World War 1 Flying Ace.
Our efforts at building an ice rink proved futile given last year’s warm winter, however undeterred we have tried again thanks to the installation of a water hydrant this past spring.
Early in the spring we began to perform some final grading of the school site with the $10 000 worth of donated top soil thanks to the help of a local contractor. This required the removal of several stones from the site before the planting of grass seed. With a few phone calls and emails we had over 50 residents come out to offer their help.
The baseball diamond was in need of some much needed upgrades in order to make it game worthy for our teams so through the financial help of Sweaburg Minor Ball and the Sweaburg and District Lions Club as well as the help of some local contractors the diamond was ready for the 2012 season.
Fundraising efforts this past year included a bottle drive on the Victoria Day long weekend, as well as our Pulled Pork Dinner this past September. With positive results from both events, look for them to be repeated in the upcoming year. The next bottle drive will be May 20th 2013 and our next Pulled Pork Supper will be on September 14th 2013.
Using public input gathered at the September 7th 2011 meeting at the Lions Pavilion as well as input gathered at the March 7th 2012 meeting at the Sweaburg United Church, we established a priority list of community needs for the park. This was used by our grant sub-committee to search for appropriate funding opportunities. This proved to be successful and will result in a very exciting 2013.
In the upcoming year we will be reviewing quotes for playground equipment with the $66 100 awarded from the Ontario Trillium Foundation. We will also be reviewing quotes to replace the basketball court with a $20 000 grant we have received from Farm Credit Canada.
The summer of 2013 will see many improvements to the Captain (T.F) Tommy Williams Park which would not have been possible without the dedication and hard work of the park committee and without the support of this community.
Phil Gagnon, Chair
Captain (T.F) Tommy Williams Park Committee