Milk River seeking to upgrade its bowling alley by late summer

The bowling alley in Milk River will see a much-needed upgrade in late summer or early fall this year.

The four bowling lanes at the alley are more than 50 years old. Shirley Hawco, treasurer for the Riverside Community Golf Society, says they have reached their expiry dates.

She says the current lanes are wood. It is no longer feasible to sand them as the screw heads are beginning to come to the surface.

The bowling alley is well used in Milk River and seems to be getting busier.

“I’ve lived in Milk River for 10 years and the bowling league has been approximately 12 to 15 teams and two years ago we were sitting at 16 and 18 (teams). This year we had 22 teams. Also, this year we’ve had more birthday parties and family gatherings using our bowling alley than ever before,” says Hawco.

Earl Rivers High School students are using the bowling alley for physical education class for five weeks, once a week.

“We’re finding that bowling, for whatever reason, is most definitely on an upswing here in Milk River,” she adds.

Hawco says they had someone look at the lanes to see if they could be sanded and refinished, but they were told it should not be done. The next step was to investigate the costs and companies that could re-do the lanes.

Hawco says they have a quote from Peterbauer Bowling Supplies in Edmonton to completely re-do the lanes and upgrade the gutters at a cost of $40,000.

The company would change the lanes to synthetic, which is what most bowling alleys use.

Officials hope to have the funding for this project in place soon so the work can be completed by late summer or early fall. The bowling league begins again in September or October and runs until midApril.

“We have gone for personal and corporate donations, which we have received a few and we have applied for grants,” adds Hawco about how they hope to get funding for the project.

As of early April, they had received $3,000 from Agrium CPS towards the lane project.

Hawco says they’re waiting on four other grants for which they’ve applied, including two different Canada 150 grants which would add up to a combined $35,000. They’ve applied for an FCC AgriSpirit $10,000 grant.

“Right now we’re sitting — waiting on whether or not any of these are coming through for us,” she adds.

Town of Milk River officials have also indicated the Town will help with funding for the project if needed.

The bowling alley is located in the clubhouse at the golf course and is a Town-owned facility.

The Riverside Community Golf Society looks after the golf course, the clubhouse and the bowling alley and that’s why those are the organizations are the ones applying for the grants.

“We’re hoping that this summer or early fall we can get the new lanes put in, but we definitely, definitely need some money, because right now we have an account that we set up for the bowling and right now we’re sitting at just over $8,000 going towards the $40,000 improvement,” explains Hawco.

When the funding is in place, installing the new lanes will only take two days.

If people or business want to donate and want a tax deductible receipt they can make donations to the Town of Milk River Bowling Alley upgrade as the Town can issue tax receipts.

If people don’t care about getting a tax deductible receipt, they can make donations payable to the Riverside Community Golf Bowling Alley upgrade.