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Rossland awarded $20,000 playground grant

Rossland has been awarded $19,042 to fund a playground. The funding comes from a grant through the Tire Stewardship of B.C.

Rossland has been awarded $19,042 to fund a playground. The funding comes from a grant through the Tire Stewardship of B.C. They offer grants for playgrounds in B.C. that use recycled rubber as the base.

School District 20 applied for the grant in December for a playground at Rossland Secondary. Jennifer Ellis, a member of the committee in charge of the playground said that the grant will help to finance it, though more money is needed.

“Right now we’re working on contacting other organizations to ask for some additional funds, so we’re just doing fundraising right now so that we know what our total budget is,” Ellis said.

The committee is hoping to place the playground in Jubilee Park near the baseball diamond. That is city owned land and so the decision rests on council, Ellis said.

“We’re working with the city to see,” she said.

“They’ve agreed in principal that they would consider that as a location, but we still have to finalize that agreement.”

Tire Stewardship covers half the cost of the tire rubber surface, which is estimated at $40,000 for a 204 square metre playground at RSS.

“It’s a substitute or alternative for peat gravel or wood-fibre landscaping mulch,” said Mike Hennessy, executive director of Tire Stewardship B.C.

He added that kids like the rubber because they can put colourful patterns into it and the ability to make the rubber spongy.

It also offers the ability to make the playground wheelchair accessible.

The stewardship collects tires and makes sure they get recycled. They operate the program indecent of the government and so collect eco fees on each new tire sold.

“We have to promote the stewardship of tires and the recycling of tires and one way of doing that is having this grant program where we support communities and group projects that use recycled rubber,” he said.