Awesome Race planned
New Minas Rotary club raising money for splash park
The New Minas Sunrise Rotary Club is working on something ‘amazing’ to raise money for a new splash park planned for the community.
Called Rotary’s Awesome Race, teams of four will run all over the region looking for clues and completing events in order to come out on top.
Based on the popular reality television series The Amazing Race, organizers are hoping it will bring the village one step closer to meeting its goal, says Lisa Mitton.
“This is our second event, the last one we held was in 2013 in the fall and it was very successful,” Mitton said. “We just wanted to see how it would work since it was the first time we were putting something like this on.”
There will be a variety of obstacles and puzzles to solve throughout Kings County when the race kicks off on May 6.
The teams meet between eight and nine in the morning at the same place and are given several clues. Participants are give four clues to start, and then four more after a checkpoint in order to keep them spread out.
The event is capped at 25 teams of four and participants have to be aged 19 or over.
“We’ve asked each team to establish a goal of raising $1,000,” she said. “We know that might not happen, but we have to put a dollar value on things at some point, but we also don’t want to turn teams away.”
If the event met its cap of 25 teams, and each one raised $1,000, New Minas would be $25,000 closer to building the splash park.
“There are a lot of young families with children here looking for something to do and family events can get expensive quickly,” Mitton said. “The splash park will be free, it’s just trying to get something else in the village that will give residents stuff to do for family fun and physical activity.”
John Ansara, recreation director for New Minas, says the splash park will cost approximately $150,000. The village is currently going through the tender process for the park.
“We’re at the very final stages, and there are a lot of really good bids, it’s a difficult decision on which group to go with,” Ansara said.
Through fundraising efforts from multiple groups in the community including the Lion’s Club, Nova Scotia Dental Association, the Louis Millett Trust and others, the community will see its splash park by July 1, Ansara said.
The last Awesome Race in 2013 brought in nearly $10,000 for the project. Contributions also came in from the province and the county. New Minas contributed $53,000 for their share of the costs.
“It doesn’t cost much to maintain them at all,” Ansara said. “You open in the spring and close it in the fall, which makes it so appealing.”
Ansara said this is the largest community contributed public works project since he started his role three years ago.
“There is a hole when it comes to water play in the summer here,” he said. “The closest pool is in Acadia, but cost prohibitive. For our community, it’s really a necessary piece of the recreation puzzle. It’s right on the bus line, and will be free.”
The park will also bee wheelchair accessible, Ansara said.
Those interested in participating in the Awesome Race can stay up to date on the fundraising efforts on the rotary club’s Facebook page.
The rotary club previously fundraised for the Brigadoon Children’s Camp, raising enough to build a cabin at the site.
“We’re such a small, tight-knit community, so there’s always something we can do to help each other out,” Mitton said.