Sedley Spray Park

1. Why did your community choose to build a spray park (what do you hope to achieve)? Who are your intended users?

Our committee identified a need for additional recreational facilities in our growing community so we got together with the goal of building a spray park. With the help of the Rick Hansen Foundation, we extended that goal to make it a fully accessible spray park for the physically and visually impaired. Anyone will be able to use it: any age, any ability level. 

2. What key considerations did your committee have to think about in the planning process? How long did it take to raise funds?

In a broad sense, our main considerations were probably similar to other comparable projects: We needed land to build the park on, infrastructure (water/sewer/drainage, etc.), a contractor to actually build the park, and of course community buy-in, in order to raise the required funds. We spoke with a few other communities that had recently built spray parks to gather information on where to even begin. We then approached village council in Sedley, to run our crazy idea by them, and were met with full support. We hosted a multitude of fundraisers and tried our best to plan those around seeding and harvest considering we are a farming community. We also applied for a number of grants, and eventually made an appeal to our local business community as well. It took three years and a very dedicated committee to raise the funds. 

3. What made your project a success?

There are three things that made this a success story. One is the support from our local council and administrators who provided us with invaluable support and assistance from Day one. Second is having a committee that is willing to put in a lot of volunteer time to make things happen. We have 13 members and it's hard to imagine this project coming to life without a full team effort. Finally, and maybe most importantly, is the support from the people of Sedley and surrounding communities. If we didn't have the community support, we couldn't have done it. 

4. How did the project happen? And When?

After approaching a few different companies in our first year as a committee, we decided to go with a company called PlayQuest. They have been great to work with through the whole process: friendly, communicative, accommodating, and knowledgeable. They are currently in the middle of construction and will be done before school is out for summer! We still have a couple of the accessibility features to add once the park is constructed, so we hope to have everything complete by mid-summer. 

5. Any other comments?

As far as we have been able to confirm, this is the only spray park in Saskatchewan that is accessible to the visually impaired, so we are quite proud of that!

Back Row (l-r): Jana Leier, Cristalee Allan, Giselle Szczepanski, Leandra Strass, Leanne Haus, Stephanie Makellky, Tracy Brown
Front Row (l-r): Deanne Makellky, Lisa Selenski, Ashli Brick, Tara Nestman
Missing: Jennifer Deck, Nichole Leier