Although Pense, Sask. didn’t quite secure the title of Kraft Hockeyville 2020 earlier this year, the small town has seen an enormous rallying of support since their bid for the title that has helped their fundraising dreams come true anyway.
Organizers of the fundraiser for Pense Memorial Rink announced that they have raised the initial goal of $300,000 needed to replace the ageing brine piping system in the rink, ensuring that the community’s beloved ice will be sticking around for years to come.
The rink’s brine piping system is over 30 years old and rink board member Leah Barnard said it is necessary to keep both the main rink and curling rink facilities operational — which means a lot to the hockey players, ice skaters, curlers and more in Saskatchewan.
“The arena sits pretty well dead centre in southern Saskatchewan, [and] it's not just for us, in our community,” said Barnard. “We have renters come out and use our ice from Regina, from Moose Jaw, lots of different areas, and so it's really important that we keep going and keep the facility open not just for our community, but for everybody else as well.”
Pense Rink’s journey started back in August, with the announcement that the small town of under 600 people had been named in the top four finalists for the Kraft Hockeyville contest.
After a whirlwind of media appearances and support, Pense emerged from the contest with no title and a consolation prize of $25,000 — but that was just the beginning, said Barnard.
The disappointment of losing didn’t last very long, as the hard-fought campaign brought tons of attention to Pense’s cause.
“Less than 24 hours later, we had Brett Wilson sort of start everything by making a donation and matching that $25,000. And from that point on, it just sort of exploded, with not only the province rallying behind us with making donations but a lot of Eastern Canada,” said Barnard.
She said that the committee was receiving calls from as far away as Newfoundland, where winning Kraft Hockeyville town Twillingate is located, with folks reaching out to offer donations and support the rink’s GoFundMe campaign.
“Even not coming out on top [in the contest], we still feel like winners after the fact,” said Barnard. “The sort of inside joke was, sometimes maybe being on top isn’t always the number one spot, and we learned that very quickly with all the support we have seen.”
When the dust settled, the rink had collected $280,000 for its repairs, just under the price tag provided to them in a quote for the work.
Then, on Oct. 26, Pense Rink shared some more great news.
Prior to all the Hockeyville mania, the Pense rink committee had submitted a grant application to the Richardson Foundation, working with staff from local Richardson Pioneer locations. That grant was approved, offering another $30,000 to put Pense over the threshold of their goal.
“That just gave us the last little bit of a boost to basically hit our first goal, and so now we’re at $301,000,” said Barnard.
Moving forward, Barnard said that the committee is hoping to keep up the momentum. The initial replacement quote for the work is over two years old, and Pense Rink is expecting some additional costs once construction gets underway in the early spring, so they aren’t calling it quits on fundraisers.
“It's sort of like trying to go in and do a bathroom renovation. You’re going to start with one thing and something might sort of creep up on you, so we want to prepare for that,” said Barnard.
Pense Rink is currently taking part in the Clean Fields, Community Yields contest from the FMC, which is offering a $5,000 bonus donation to a deserving community project — and people can vote to support them here until Oct. 31.
But regardless of what the future may bring, Barnard and the committee at Pense Rink are extremely pleased with the success of the Hockeyville campaign.
“We’re obviously very thankful for everything that has taken place and like I said, this wasn’t just our community who rallied with us. It was Saskatchewan as a whole, and then it turned into all of Canada,” said Barnard. “The people who voted for us, the people who made donations, we saw it from every single province and the number one thing [for us] is making sure everyone knows how appreciative we are.”
