build in Winnipeg

Hope led another fantastic Build last Thursday with Suzie as her stellar Second and Ron Sweetman as her incredible Installer. The Home Depot Canada, the Elmwood Community Resource Centre, the United Way and the City of Winnipeg joined forces (201 in all) to build a fabulous playspace. After a rough (& very wet) start on prep day 1, they got everything ready over a full (& sunny) prep day 2 – digging all the holes and priming several areas to paint. (Hope’s shoes are now officially retired after tasting “Manitoba Gumbo,” or black clay & mud.) Their beautiful Build Day morning kicked off at 8:30 with a great pep talk by Annette Verschuren, the President of The Home Depot Canada, and with a warm-up led by the City of Winnipeg’s recreational director (accompanied by Homer D. Poe, the City of Winnipeg’s mascot, and the Centre’s mascot). The morning took off so much excitement that by lunchtime most of the side projects were complete and several volunteers were eating watermelon and slurping on slushies. (Winnipeg is apparently the slushie capital of Canada.) The day ended with an on-time Board-cutting at 3:45 and a big Thank You from volunteers’ kids.

All the volunteers were amazing! They moved 150 cubic yards of PEA GRAVEL!, mixed cement (w/ sand & gravel) by hand, did loads of side projects, and never complained once! The project really transformed the space – opening it up, sprucing it up and bringing life back into the place. Hope’s favorite part was seeing all the passers-by, neighbors and kids come out and watch in amazement.

Side Projects:
Painted the Centre’s facia, an outdoor stage, 10 park benches, 6 waste baskets, a hopscotch and 2 4-squares
Completed a 10’ x 100’ mural that read “Neighbours helping neighbours” and was tagged with 50’ of volunteers’ & kids’ hand prints
Built 4 planter benches, 6 picnic table tops (w/ metal frames) and (nearly) 2 BBQ pits
Refurbished their garden and weeded the surrounding area
Moved sand into an old sandbox
Created a small, limestone pathway

VIPs:
Annette Verschuren, President of The Home Depot Canada
Jeff Kinnaird, Regional VP of Operations, The Home Depot Canada
Randy Kelly, DM
Brent Ballantyne, Store Manager
3 other Store Managers
Kelly McNamara, PR Manager, The Home Depot Canada
Ingrid Zacharias, Exec. Director, Elmwood Community Resource Centre
Lillian Thomas, City Councillor
Terry Welling-Skorodenski, President of the City of Winnipeg’s Retirees’ Charitable Fund
Kathi Neal, Director of Marketing and Communications, United Way

Media:
The A Channel
CKY – CTV (one of Canada’s national networks)
The Herald
The Winnipeg Sun
The Free Press