Left to right: City of Dryden Community Services Manager Steve Belanger, Mayor Greg Wilson and Hydro One's Brent McQuaker.
A groundbreaking moment in the building of an accessible, inclusive, and family friendly change space at the Dryden Pool and Fitness Centre.
Work started about three weeks ago and Mayor Greg Wilson laid one of the first bricks down on Monday.
“Sport and recreation is a key building block for a healthy community. It melds the hard services we’re trying to provide such as public works, sport and recreation with the soft ones considering people such as the social services considering people and wanting to make it as inclusive as possible for everyone to participate in our recreation facility. This is a huge step, and we really appreciate Hydro One stepping up with their kind and generous contribution.”
The project was one of five to receive the maximum grant of 25 thousand dollars from Hydro One’s Energizing Life program this past winter.
The City of Dryden has also committed 15 thousand dollars towards the 45-thousand-dollar project, with the Dryden Recreation Expansion and Modification Committee donating 5 thousand.
Manager of Community Services Steve Belanger says they recognized the need for a space at the pool and fitness centre that removes barriers, so everyone can feel safe and welcome.
“We look at this building, built and opened in 1981 and some of those considerations regarding accessibility and (for those who identify as) transgender or LGBTQ2S plus weren’t really there at that time and maybe even for some families. Fast forward 40 years later, we see a different set of challenges and barriers to participation and how do we address it.”
Left to right: City of Dryden Community Services Manager Steve Belanger, Mayor Greg Wilson, Hydro One’s Brent McQuaker, Sharman Reid and family in front of the soon to be new change space.
Belanger goes on to say individuals who have never attended the pool before will finally have the opportunity to do so.
“Working 20 years in recreation as a provider, I love seeing people who come to these buildings and get to recreate, and you come here by choice and right now unfortunately there’s some people who don’t have a choice to come here but we’re going to fix that.”
Sharman Reid and her family were also in attendance where she attested to how young families can remain as a family unit and when her children were younger they definitely would have benefited from having this space.
Located right beside the pool, the 250 square foot wheelchair accessible change space will have its own washroom, an elevated transfer table, benches and lockers.
The change space is expected to be ready for public use by the end of September, early October.
