The new playground at Eastview Park (Photo - Town of Coaldale on Facebook)

By Justin Goulet

Kinsmen lead expansion of playground at Coaldale’s Eastview Park

Jul 31, 2020 | 11:43 AM

COALDALE, AB – The Kinsmen Club of Coaldale is helping spruce up a local park.

On July 24 and 25, volunteers showed up to the Eastview Park playground.

$75,000 worth of equipment was installed around the existing playground infrastructure, almost tripling the size of the playground.

Co-chairman of the Kinsmen Club of Coaldale, Jack Van Rijn said the playground upgrade was part of the bigger Eastview Park Revitalization project.

“Kinsmen were approached a couple of years ago about any interest of doing a revitalization of what they refer to as Eastview Park and that’s located at 1825 10 Street in Coaldale, he told LNN.

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“Our organization looked at the possibility of putting some money towards that. When we reached out to the community, we were able to find some more support and by doing so, we raised $379,000 and as part of that, we decided to put in a basketball court, a full tennis court, and then we also put in four pickleball courts and then we decided to redo the playground at Eastview Park.”

Van Rijn said the community response has been so positive, that on the first day of the playground project, potential volunteers had to be turned away because there were so many.

“There was an existing playground that we decided to leave. We had it inspected and it still met CSA (Canadian Standards Association) standards, so we built a new $75,000 playground to incorporate the old playground, which we did last weekend,” he commented.

Over the course of those two days, 52 volunteers helped out.

Volunteers at the new playground (Photo – Kinsmen Club of Coaldale on Facebook)

Park N Play Design supervised the build, providing the proper tools and guidance during the process and making sure the equipment was safe once put together.

Dennis’ Dirtworx Ltd, DH Fencing, Strait Way Ltd., Inland Heidelberg CEMENT Group, and Waste Connections of Canada. The Kinette Club of Coaldale provided lunch and refreshments.

The playground is now open to the public.

Other amenities will be brought in as part of the Eastview Park Revitalization, including more park benches, picnic tables, a three-hole disc golf course and new soccer nets.

Van Rijn said Coaldale’s KLC Cattle Company donated the cost for a new day-use picnic shelter, a $30,000 project, and the Kinette Club donated funds to install a $50,000 outdoor fitness centre.

Additionally, Coaldale council allocated $100,000 to support the club in its endeavour.

“One thing that the Kinsmen like to do – and we’ve been involved with almost every playground built in Coaldale – and we did a spray park a few years ago as well – it’s important for us to add these features to Coaldale for the main reason that there is no cost to the citizens,” Van Rijn said.

“They can go out and enjoy all the features, they can bring their families [and] we take pride in the fact that there’s no cost involved for families.”