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Playground fundraising continues with bottle drive

Eckville continues to hold successive fundraisers to help with its efforts to build a playground for its elementary school.

The local initiative to build a new playground at Eckville Elementary School is continuing to thrive, after the fundraising group that is working for that cause held its third bottle drive of the year.

One of the organizers of the fundraising group, Tiphany Eliuk, is pleased to see how quickly the fundraising efforts have grown.

“We are doing a fundraiser for our local elementary school playground and we are trying to raise $300,000,” she said. “We are having a bottle drive and a lemonade stand. We have done three bottle drives, the last two were around $600.”

To help boost the bottle drop-offs, the fundraising group moved from over by the Elementary school, to across from the Central Alberta Co-op.

“We thought we would change locations and raise more money,” Eliuk said. “We are over $10,000 in the last six months.”

According to Eliuk, the new playground has become a necessity, with the clock ticking on the current playground.

“The playground we currently have only has a five-year lifespan left on it,” she said. “We need to replace it before then and there is no school funding for these things. It is all parent, volunteer organized to raise the money.”

Eliuk explained that the playground will benefit more than just the students of Eckville Elementary.

“It is awesome. It is a community playground that everyone uses after soccer, or after baseball and when school is not in. It is used by everyone and it is great to see all the kids of all ages support it,” she said.

The group intends to have many more events to help reach their goals.

“We are planning to do a penny carnival in the fall; we are thinking we going to do a read-a-thon; and maybe a couples’ night out thing,” she said. “We will keep doing bottle drives and hopefully another baseball tournament in the future.”

Eliuk added “we need lots of volunteers to help us with the fundraisers and come up with ideas. We are having a meeting on June 19, at the elementary school. We are hoping to have lots of people come out and support us.”

reporter@eckvilleecho.com