Here Comes The Neighbourhood

HOT 103, Winnipeg Real Estate News, and Sport Manitoba are teaming up to bring back a little community consciousness to your section of the city.

It's Here Comes The Neighbourhood!

Winners:

Week 1 - David Smith

Listen to David win with Ace and Chrissy

David lives in Transcona, and wrote..."Park City West recently had a fire that damaged the players box on one of the outdoor rinks. The $1,500 would go a long way towards repairing that damage."

Sport Manitoba and Winnipeg Real Estate News will award David with a community bingo worth $1,500, which he can use to replace the damaged players' box. Congrats David.

 

Week 2 - Will Blair

Listen to Will win with Ace and Chrissy

Will lives in Charleswood, and wrote..."At the present time there are only four available fields in the entire Charleswood area which can accommodate our younger hardball players. As for our older players, bantam and up, there are no available facilities and we have been forced to either use facilities outside of the area, or rent space from the Winnipeg South Minor Baseball Association. Due to the lack and cost of developable land in this area of the city, it is unlikely that this issue will be resolved in the immediate future, however we can do something about our existing facilities.

Of the four fields we do use in Charleswood, one is used by Rally Cap, two are suitable for use by Rookie or Mosquito players only, while the third is set up to accommodate Pee Wee players. There is a fifth Bantam field however it is unusable for that age level due to the development several years ago of a road through the outfield. All the fields are in poor shape with backstops which are falling apart due to age and vandalism; dugouts which are too small and, in one location, unsafe. The fields are rutted and poorly designed resulting in poor drainage and could pose a hazard to players. Only one location has bleachers for spectators and it is in moderately poor condition and will require some work to fix it up. None of the locations have adequate parking, nor are there any sanitary facilities for spectators or participants to use. These are major concern as we see approximately 3000+ players use our facilities in a single season ,not to mention the use the fields get from team practices and special events such as the Rookie Jamboree.

This program would assist us in raising the funds required to rehabilitate the four diamonds as well as convert the existing unusable Bantam field into a Pee Wee field. The work would include the replacement of backstops and fencing, new fencing around the outfields, enlargement of the dugouts, repair to spectator bleachers, drainage improvement and leveling of the fields.

Sport Manitoba and Winnipeg Real Estate News will award Will with a community bingo worth $1,500, which he can use to rehabilitate the existing baseball diamonds. Congrats Will.

 

Week 3 - Darren Klapak

Listen to Darren win with Ace and Chrissy

Darren lives in Fort Garry, and wrote..."The Wildwood Community Club recently had the player boxes attached to the two hockey rinks condemned by the city. These boxes were built in the early 70's by loving and caring parents of the children who used the facility. Quotes of up to $10,000 were given to dismantle and remove the old boxes and then it was quoted that it would be another $20,000 to rebuild. So myself and four other dads decided we could tear down the boxes ourselves and on a very chilly weekend in May we proceeded to do so. With half our mission accomplished we are now considering the costs involved with reconstructing the player boxes and dressing rooms that were removed. Wildwood Community Club is used by all the children in this very closely knit community. It would be of great assistance to our club to be able to start the redevelopment of our rinks with your generous offer of a bingo. Did I mention that we have the only Olympic sized outdoor rink in Winnipeg. Thanks for your consideration. What a wonderful thing this is for the city and all the communties tht participate."

Sport Manitoba and Winnipeg Real Estate News will award Darren with a community bingo worth $1,500, which he can use to redevelop the rink. Congrats Darren.

  

Week 4 - Matt Kathler

Listen to Matt win with Ace and Chrissy

Matt lives in Windsor Park, and wrote..."I've lived in Windsor Park for 17 years and it hasn't been the "nicest" area to live in. There seems to always be trouble around with teens and young adults carrying drugs and weapons and having a bad influence on younger kids in the area. And when we had the skateboard park put in at Winakwa Community Centre, the older kids seemed to migrate to the skatepark, making it an unsafe place for younger kids to go to. With all these olders kids hanging around the skatepark, it doesn't get skated that often and turned into a pretty dangerous hangout spot, with broken beer bottles everywhere and high school students always wanting to start fights. The skatepark was a great idea to put in, as Windsor Park doesn't have too many close by places to skate, and has alot of very talented skateboarders. I've been working with the community centre and the st. boniface school board to get a program together, and hope to clean the area up and get some more skateboard ramps put in to make it a funner and safer place to be at. We haven't had much luck, as most of the money put into the skatepark ends up going towards repairing damages to the community centre and covering graffitti. With more ramps and obstacles put into the skatepark, we are hoping it will attract more skateboarders and turn it back into a skatepark again. We are hoping to get some funding to help take a step forward and having a better skateboard park for kids to skate at, and make it a much better enviornment for everybody! More at http://www.winakwacc.ca/ "

Sport Manitoba and Winnipeg Real Estate News will award Matt with a community bingo worth $1,500, which he can use to put towards the skatepark. Congrats Matt.

  

Week 5 - Neil Wilcox

Listen to Neil with Ace and Chrissy

Neil lives in St. Boniface, and wrote..."The staff, students and community of John M. King School are in the process of completely redeveloping our community playground. I've attached a copy of our plan with drawings etc. for your information."

Sport Manitoba and Winnipeg Real Estate News will award Neil with a community bingo worth $1,500, which he and the school can use to put towards the playground. Congrats Neil.

 

Week 6 - Antonella Bertone

Listen to Antonella win with Ace and Chrissy

Antonella lives in River Heights, and wrote..."The Centro Caboto is a non-profit organization for the Italian Community. They are located on Wilkes avenue. The reason I am writing is because we need to fix the soccer field that has been destroyed. It is used by all ages and group and is sad that the Italian Centre does not have a working soccer field for everyone to enjoy. We are estimating it to cost approx $10,000 to fix, I would love to be able to go to the community and say Hot 103 helped us rebuild our field with a donation .... Help us bring back the sport we all love. SOCCER!!! I just think that we have so many volunteers that work hard everyday to mantain the Centre that it would be nice to be able to have our field back.......Especially for out 10th anniversary September 14 of this year!!! Thanks!!"

Sport Manitoba and Winnipeg Real Estate News will award Antonella and The Centro Caboto with a community bingo worth $1,500, which everyone can use to put towards the soccer field. Congrats Antonella.

 

Week 7 - Brent Arnold

Listen to Brent with Ace and Chrissy

Brent lives in St. Vital and wrote..."The St. Vital Mustangs is a non-profit organization that has been dedicated to bringing the benefits of the sport of football to young athletes ages 7-21 for the past 60 years. Operated entirely by volunteers we have grown into one of the largest youth football organizations in the province with over 400 registered players in 2008.It is the goal of our Football Club to provide a high quality, enjoyable experience for everyone including players, coaches, families, and volunteers. To achieve this we make every effort to provide guidance, instruction and access to training for all players, coaches, trainers and managers to assist them in reaching their maximum football potential. We also promote and strive to ensure a safe, healthy and respectful environment for all participants. We are in the need of much needed field equipment so that we will be able to continue to offer to our young players the opportunity to full fill their potentials, both as young men and wowen in the community and on the football field."

Sport Manitoba and Winnipeg Real Estate News will award Brent and The Mustangs with a community bingo worth $1,500, which can be put towards new field equipment. Congrats Brent.

 

Week 8 - Chelsea Hansen

Listen to Chelsea win with Ace and Chrissy

Chelsea is from River Heights and wrote...Three years ago I began playing this amazing sport called Bandy on the Women's team representing Canada on an International level. Bandy is by no matter of contest at all, the fastest game on ice. As a team, we are based out of Winnipeg. We have travelled extensively to participate in the World Bandy Championships, placing fourth and fifth in the last two years. All our travel and practice expenses are met by our own means and by extensive fundraising and sponsorship that we seek out. Our biggest downfall as a team is not our skill level as we are all accomplished athletes in other sports. Nor is it our coaching staff because they are all incredibly passionate about the game.

There is only one thing that stops our team from achieving a World Championship medal. This one thing is our lack is a proper practice venue. We currently practice as often as we can on a soccer field (world regulation size of the Bandy ice surface)that we flood with buckets and hoses as a group. However, this only allows us to practice during the few evening hours (after work/school/other fundraisers) before it gets dark, which occurs very early in the cold winter months. There is also a Men's team based out of Winnipeg, and they use the same ice surface. As you can see, both teams are in need of funding. We try our best, but we each need to maintain our day jobs/school as well as play for these incredible teams. Bandy is a rapidly growing sport and we just want to make certain that Canada is competitive with the rest of the world!! Thus far we have been somewhat successful but as other teams develop with professional ice surfaces such as Team USA, Norway, Russia, Hungary, Finland and the world Champions Sweden have it is hard to keep up. Those countries can also attract more players and develop leagues within their own country which greatly improves the calibre of their play.

Canada needs your support! Team Canada Bandy need to purchase lights so that we can practice more effectively and more often as well as we need proper boards like the ones that are used in the actual regulation games at the World Championships. We are currently using nailed together two-by-fours as boards which make it all that much hard to simulate real play. I thank you for your time and your support! I hope with all my heart that you wish to aid Canada in our effort to become the best in the world at this incredible sport!! I can assure you that this organization is so very beneficial for our city and our country and your assistance will not only benefit the smaller communities in Winnipeg but Canada as a whole. These two teams have so much pride in the city of Winnipeg and the country of Canada. Each game we play, we are representing our own areas that we grew up in. For myself, it is River Heights. For our world renound goalie Amy Clarkson, is St. Andrews. We each hold Winnipeg and Canada in our hearts and we just want to share our love for our own areas and our own country with the rest of the world!! Please see our website at http://www.canadabandy.ca/  There are many pictures there that make evident our need for funding (we used to practice on a frozen water hazard at a golf course!!)

Sport Manitoba and Winnipeg Real Estate News will award Chelsea with a community bingo worth $1,500, which everyone can use to put towards Team Canada. Congrats Chelsea!

 

Week 9 - Kim Pennycook

Listen to Kim win with Ace and Chrissy

Kim is from the Fort Garry/Fort Richmond area, and wrote...Our school has an aging(dangerous)playground that has been condemned, and the school, and 2 neighboring daycares are working together to plan to tear it down and build a natural playground featuring hills, paths, and places to crawl through. It is planned to be healthy for both the children's bodies and minds. The problem is fundraising...being a smaller school, fundraising is difficult, so the project may have to wait a long time to become a reality. It would be a BIG help to win this contest and ALL of the neighborhood families would be VERY happy!

Sport Manitoba and Winnipeg Real Estate News will award Kim with a community bingo worth $1,500, which everyone can use to put towards a new playground. Congrats Kim!

 

Week 10 - Rebecca Doty

Listen to Rebecca win with Ace and Chrissy

Rebecca is from St. James and wrote...In the part of town I live in, there are alot of basket ball players who would rather play outside, but dont have the money to by a net. We used to have a court a Linwood school, but they removed the nets. what i would like to do is put an outdoor court at the Deer Lodge Community Centre. My moms freind works there and could probably get us premission. Please let us kids play Basketball!

Sport Manitoba and Winnipeg Real Estate News will award Rebecca with a community bingo worth $1,500, which everyone can use to put towards a new basketball court. Congrats Rebecca!

 

Week 11 - Brandy Lucas

Listen to Shannon win with Ace and Chrissy

Brandy lives in East St. James, and wrote..."I heard about your radio contest and I knew I had to try to make some change on our street. I live in an area of the city that can be really great, or at times a little scary. Near the street I live, we have a small community center called Valour Community Centre - Oriels site. This is an extremely run-down place that has had to cut programs at a steady rate in the 3 years I've lived here. The outside includes 2 run-down wood play structures that leave slivers and seem almost too unsafe for small children to play on. There are 4 swings and 3 baby swings, but the teenagers often wrap the chains over the top and so many times we cannot stay. There is a sandbox infested with red ants, which are not very fun to play with. There is an outdoor skating rink that last year suffered from a set fire and the walls have still not been replaced. That seems like a lot of negative stuff, but let me tell you what keeps us going back to this park (other than the fact I'm a single mother of 3, living in an apartment )...there is a wading pool, which we love and thank goodness the city continues to use, and a huge field in which to run, play ball or have a picnic.

I don't know if I really have a specific plan in mind - all I know is this little park needs help so the children in this area have a SAFE and fun place to play. Nothing would make my children and I, and the neighborhood children happier, than to have a little positive change here. I really wanted to include pictures so you could see what I see, but I don't even own a digital camera. Thank-you for letting me tell my story, and I would really, really appreciate your consideration in this contest to improve our park for the children's sake."

Sport Manitoba and Winnipeg Real Estate News will award Brandy with a community bingo worth $1,500, which she can use to create some change and make the community centre and park a safer place to play in - for her family and the rest of the neighbourhood. Congrats Brandy.

 

Week 12 - Shannon Ivsek

Listen to Shannon win with Ace and Chrissy

Shannon is from the Fort Garry and Fort Richmond area and wrote ....When we saw this contest we knew we were the right group to be entered! I represent the Board of Directors at Victoria Community Centre. We are a dedicated group trying to rejuvenate a Community Club that is well loved and well used. Even though we are home to a sad old building, Victoria CC is always booked with activities and is the centre of community for all our west Fort Garry families. Our original CC building was an old train car that found it's way to the location at 80 Derek Street sometime in the early 1940's, that train car is still part of the existing structure that grew with the community. We boast the best outdoor ice in the city and have a 'newer' skate change building that was built with the help and fundraising efforts of volunteers back in the early 1990's. Our community supporters are a small group but very dedicated. In winter our rinks are full of families and pick up games are always ongoing. In fact we have a group of men that come from all areas of the city every Saturday regardless of how cold to play shinny on their 'home' rink. Fort Garry boys all of them, even vistors from Calgary and Toronto play when they are in town! The sound of kids voices and pucks hitting the boards echo down the lanes all winter, there's no sound like it. It is truly what winter in Winnipeg is all about. In order to continue offering the best ice in town and preserve this winter activity for our kids, we are actively fundraising to purchase new ice maintenance equipment. Ultimately we would love to replace our poor old club building, but for now, equipment to produce and maintain our winter ice rinks for our recreational users and our users from the Fort Garry North Hockey Assocation is our main goal. A snowblower is badly needed, as well as a power sweeper and a few other items our ice crew would love to have would be a real gift. We are an enthusiastic Board that really wants to see our little club succeed. As we work hard as volunteers to get more of our community involved and provide a safe fun place for kids to spend their time, your help in selecting us as 'Here Comes the Neighbourhood' recipients would be a great gift to us and our neighbourhood families.

Sport Manitoba and Winnipeg Real Estate News will award Shannon with a community bingo worth $1,500, which she can use to offer Winnipeg the best ice in town.  Congrats Shannon.

 

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