2022 marked another incredible year for Valley Life Recreation. We received tremendous support not only from local businesses and individuals, but from people across Canada and worldwide. We were lucky enough to meet amazing new people who were elated to find out that Valley Life Recreation has outdoor recreation at its heart and who wanted to work with us to help make our vision a reality. We introduced a hiking and skiing trail to many that didn’t know it existed and have sparked interest in others to come and enjoy the start of our new trail park.
In 2021 we raised $250,000 for the Squirrel Hills Trail Park and in 2022 we were able to add a little over $300,000 to that total, bringing our 2022 year-end-total for this project to $556,000. Once we knew we were financially ready to hire contractors, we reached out to our project managers from Scatliff + Miller + Murray to initiate the tender process for professional trail building companies. The COVID-19 pandemic created quite a pull for outdoor trail construction and we were receiving start dates 2 years out, until we heard from one company able to start in summer 2022. With that, we welcomed Yan and his crew of D.I.G. Trail Design out of Rossland, British Columbia to break ground on the new trails August 24, 2022. While we had initially planned for an earlier construction date, prior jobs delayed the construction crew. D.I.G Trail Design, along with some help from Ian (our infrastructure chair) and a few other locals, were able to get the downhill flow trails and family trails completed and the 5km perimeter trail roughed in as of November 1, 2022. This represents approximately 60% of the planned trails. We are looking forward to the return of Yan and his crew in Summer 2023 for completion of the trails.
None of this would have been possible without the grants, sponsorships and donations that we are very grateful to have received. Many new sponsors joined our project and they will be mentioned in our upcoming fundraising report. A very special thank you to all of those in attendance this evening that represent one of those funders. Fundraising for the trail park continues and we are currently awaiting responses to $170,000 in grant applications. Keep watching our social media pages and website for updates as they come.
Attendees at the VLR 2023 Community Update and Annual General Meeting on April 4, 2023
In March 2022 Mark Timmons held a book reading at Farmhouse 50 in support of our trail park plans. Mark very generously chose to donate $11 from each sale of his trail running book to Valley Life Recreation as his contribution to our new trail initiative. We also launched our third annual fundraising calendar featuring pictures taken by local resident Patrick Stone. These calendars featured wildlife found around the Minnedosa area and definitely brought a smile to our faces as we put this project together picture by picture.
We spent the remainder of 2022 working on the detailed trailhead design and preparing for winter trail use that you will hear more about tonight. The Valley Life Recreation board continues to be awestruck with the support we are receiving and the kind words that people share with us daily in regards to what trails mean to them. We are so excited for what is to come this year and the anticipated grand opening of the Squirrel Hills Trail Park.
Dominique Hampton; Secretary
Paul Archbutt; Vice Chair/Finance Chair
Dave Ternier; Board Chair
This report was originally prepared for and shared at the VLR Community Update and Annual General Meeting on April 4, 2023. Read the Fundraising Report for 2022 here.