Hearst is looking to finish up a national initiative with a strong push.
Economic Development Officer Julie Roy says this year the town decided to get involved with the Defi Hearst Participaction Challenge or better community challenge and enter themselves for a chance to win money towards improving Al Kinsey Park.
Roy says a couple years ago the community was involved in the celebration of Canada’s 150th by getting involved with Participaction.
She says this time around they are encouraging residents to join the challenge in groups or individually, by getting active throughout the community, whether it be in their own way, or though the many wonderful community events they have planned.
Roy says the contest runs from May 31st through June 16th, and she says the hope is to become grand prize winners of the $150,000. If they are crowned winners, she says they want to put the money towards a multi-generational park, which the town has said would be Al Kinsey Park, and the upgrades would be multi-purpose.
“We will be building different structures for either children, adults and also lets not forget our elders. So for example me as a mother of four children I would be able to go out there and do an outdoor workout while I can still watch my kids having fun in the kids playground.”
She also says the community has embraced the initiative over the opening weeks, which in no way is a shock to Roy, but her challenge is to make sure that residents are remembering to log their minutes for the contest.
“The challenge here is to get people to remember to put in their minutes into the program so we actually get the minutes to count towards the contest.
However, even Roy says the simple fact that residents are out and getting actively involved is simply a win in itself.
There are two main ways to input your minutes; as an individual or a group, but Roy says you must either way download the app on google play or the apple store in order to register your minutes. If anyone is in need of help the public library is offering free help with inputting minutes as well.
Further details can be found on the website.
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