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After 3 summer seasons of construction and many years of fundraising and planning we are so proud of what we have been able to accomplish. Countless hours have been dedicated to this project by parent volunteers and CRPS staff, we can not thank you enough for your dedication to making this vision a reality. Funding for the project included parent lead fundraising initiatives, private donations, support from Tree Canada, TD Friends of the Environment Foundation, and The Alberta Government Community Facility Enhancement Program. We have already observed that the outdoor classroom and enhanced natural areas has had a tremendous impact on our school. Students are now able to explore a learning that has them using their whole body (climbing, jumping, sliding) and their creativity. This project has also improved the social and emotional well being of the entire school community and has provided exciting spaces for new outdoor learning opportunities. It was rare to see community members and visitors utilizing our space outside of school hours, and now on any given day there are families gathering to enjoy our unique and exciting new space. Just to highlight some of the details of the project:
Thank you so much to the playground committee and all of those who have supported this dream since its inception. As you have likely seen our Phase 2 construction of our school's playground and outdoor learning space is near completion! We appreciate your patience as we maintain fencing around the main outdoor classroom area as our sod and trees take root. The fences will be down as soon as we can ensure the sod is ready. This phase of construction has included the addition of an outdoor amphitheatre, revitalized sand pit, log soccer backstops, 2 hillside slides, irrigation system, outdoor mud kitchen (yet to be unveiled), landscaping to make our space more usable, and a small native plant terraced garden. We recently reviewed the work done with Wilco, our hired contractor, and plan to find a solution to the erosion near the newly installed slides. We have received funding for this project from the Community Facility Enhancement Program through the Government of Alberta, TD Friends of the Environment Foundation, Alpenglow Community Education Society fundraising, and a private family donation. Canadian Rockies Public School generously installed our irrigation system through their facility management department. Alberta Parks and Recreation also generously supported our 2019/2020 Grade 5/6 class in creating the terraced native plant garden as well as their construction of an outdoor mud kitchen for our younger grades to enjoy. The mud kitchen will join our outdoor space as soon as the fencing is removed. We were fortunate enough to just be awarded the Tree Canada - Greening Canada's Schools Initiative Grant for $3500 to go towards the recent addition of the beautiful trees to our space to provide shelter from the wind in our outdoor learning space. Thank you Tree Canada and their donor TELUS for this generous support in adding beauty and shelter to our space. If you happen to see one of our playground committee members at the school be sure to say a huge thank you for all of their hard work making this project a reality.  With Phase 2 of the Alpenglow Playground and Outdoor Classroom construction approaching, our playground committee has continued to move forward with planning throughout the past few months. Our funds for this phase of construction have been acquired through the successful award of the Alberta Government Community Facility Enhancement Program and the TD Friends of the Environment Foundation Grant. Our phase 2 construction is set for July 2020 with the exciting addition of an outdoor classroom, built into one of our slopes utilizing large rundle stones for seating. Our plans also include a revitalized sand pit area, the installation of 2 hillside slides for fun year round, as well as some durable log soccer backstops. With the continued support of CRPS and ACES we are looking forward to completing the next phase of our development and beautification of the Alpenglow school yard. Our Grade 5 and 6 students, along with Ms Andrea were awarded the Alberta Environment and Parks Student Action Grant in February of 2020, congratulations!!! Before they began distance learning they were able to utilize a design thinking process for concepts they felt our younger students would like while utilizing a designated area of our school yard. The students considered many factors including budget, durability, size, weather, user group,fun, and safety. They successfully designed and constructed a "mud kitchen" in the wood workshop of CCHS and have plans to place it near the sandpit area for our students to enjoy. Thank you to the Grade 5/6 class and Ms Andrea, we are looking forward to admiring and enjoying your mud kitchen! We are thrilled with the completion of Phase 1 of the Alpenglow Playground and Outdoor Learning Space. The play structure has brought more challenge, engagement, risk, and fun to our school yard. We have also observed an increase in families gathering and spending time in the school yard, building relationships and community - which is beautiful. We would like to sincerely thank all of YOU for your years of fundraising and support in order to make this happen. We would also like to sincerely thank the Kaiser Charitable Foundation for their amazing financial contribution. Our playground team along with ACES, the CRPS facilities crew, and our CRPS administration truly joined forces to make this happen for the kids! In Phase 2/3 of construction we intend to build an outdoor learning space and further play elements for the children to utilize. Due to material acquirement times and unpredictable fall weather we have decided to begin the next phases of construction in the new year. We look forward to utilizing our fall and winter seasons to design, plan, and dream of what is next! We would not be able to dream about our next phase without the recent announcement that Alpenglow Community Education Society has been awarded $125,000 Government of Alberta Community Facility Enhancement Program Grant. Our school, the Larch neighborhood, and the entire Canmore community will benefit from the completion of the Alpenglow Playground and Outdoor Learning Space!!  A lot has been happening these past few months for our Playground Committee.
Our Playground Committee has been hard at work, reviewing submissions from and interviewing contractors. With much consideration we recommend that we award our project to Wilco/Earthscape http://www.earthscapeplay.com/. They do some amazing stuff if you want to check it out! Over the next few weeks we hope to get into discussions around the actual design and how best to proceed with construction in a phased approach pending the availability of funds. Once we have something more concrete to show for what the space could look like we will share it with all of you for your feedback.
We have raised to date $101000!!! We recently were awarded the TD Friends of the Environment Grant for $20,000. We are optimistic that we will have $200000 by the end of June - which could get us something really great! Our goal is to raise $300000. We are still (fingers crossed) hoping to get something in the ground this summer. We would encourage each of you to start talking about our school and our project with your friends and community as one of them maybe has a valuable insights and to help us gain traction and momentum for our project. |
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