A total of $65,970 in provincial grant money was awarded to the Town of Niverville for three recreation projects.

The funds are all part of the Building Sustainable Communities Program which is designed to support larger-scale capital projects. The money is all on a 50% cost-share basis so the Town of Niverville will be contributing at least $65k as well.

Recreation Manager Warren Britton says $35k of the funding they received from the province will go toward major upgrades at the dog park.

Niverville Recreation Manager Warren Britton "The dog park is in a nice pocket of land between the CRRC and the curling rink. A big issue we have now that the CRRC is coming to completion is the dog park is in a bit of a hole so we do need to regrade that whole area in order to make sure it can actually drain properly."

In addition to regrading, Britton says they will be making the dog park larger by adding space to the north side and they will be replacing some fencing.

Some of the provincial funding is earmarked for the 2022 Manitoba Winter Games. Britton says $22k is going to a utility terrain vehicle and wrestling mats that will be used for the games.

"The UTV will essentially be on tracks and it will be used to pull the cross-country ski groomer that we purchased last year so something that can be used on the colder days will be fantastic. Wrestling mats, those can be used for a variety of different things whether it be taekwondo or martial arts or anything like that and then obviously if we want to do wrestling in the future."

Britton says previously they were pulling the cross-country ski groomer with a snowmobile which got bogged down in deeper snow. He notes both the UTV and wrestling mats will be very useful to the town even after the winter games are over.

Finally, Britton says just over $8k is going toward a new rink divider system for Clipper Ice Sports.

“Right now, in the old rink, they just use a little divider system. It does okay but the pucks can get lost in them and stuff like that. This is legitimately like a mini board system with a curve and you can actually create 3 ice surfaces out of one with it. Especially in this era with COVID, it allows them to really separate the groups and make the ice surface better used.”

Britton says this funding means the world to them.

"The BSC Grant, it really is a life-changer for us. Without the 50% contribution from the province, we would be looking at only being able to do one of these projects every two or three years instead of every year. Obviously, we say a great thank you to the province for allowing these funds to be used."