Nanton Round-up Days

The annual Nanton Round-up Days in the ACE Community of NANTON are fast approaching! The Nanton Round-up Days is a town-wide celebration featuring rodeos, pancake breakfasts, a world class fireworks display and much, much MORE. This year, in fact, marks the 22nd anniversary of Nanton's amazing fireworks display. So check it out if you are in the area this August long weekend!

New to the Nanton Round-up Days this year is the ACE Raise the Roof Slo-Pitch Tournament and Cabaret. This fundraiser is meant to raise much needed funds to help replace the roof on the Nanton Hockey Arena. All of the proceeds from this event will go to the replacement.

Click here to see everything that Nanton has to offer from July 29 – August 1.

Bike park for youth in Chestermere!

Two years ago, the youth in CHESTERMERE, supported by community partners, came together and built a mountain bike skills park on land donated by a local developer. It has been a popular spot for the youth of the community ever since and a source of pride for everyone that worked as a team to make it happen.

It was always clear, however, that the location was only temporary and now the bike park must find a new location. Seeing this as an opportunity and not a barrier, the youth are looking ahead to being able to add permanent features to the new bike park and have researched many desirable structures and designs.

The ACE team in Chestermere is partnering on this project to assist with the purchasing of the materials for these permanent features along with additional fencing, signage, and bike racks. The goal is to have the Park built and opened by spring 2012. Kudos to the team in Chestermere for helping the empowerment of their local youth!

Upcoming Grand Opening of Hinton Greenhouse

The HINTON Community Garden Society is so pleased to announce their grand opening celebration – slotted for the end of August! The north greenhouse is 100% filled and the south greenhouse will be ready for gardening in spring 2012. The outdoor gardens and site landscaping are currently underway thanks to thousands of volunteer hours and corporate donations.

The Hinton Community Garden project has three purposes:

· To improve Hinton’s food security by ensuring a perennial local supply of fresh, organic produce.
· To reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by reducing the amount of fossil fuel used in the production, processing, and transport of food.
· To promote social cohesion and inclusiveness by functioning as a "Third Place" where everyone can participate.

Go to their website to see all the action and check out this blog!

Longview Wins Major Award!

Congratulations to LONGVIEW who has recently won a Let Them Be Kids (LTBK) Award. As 1 of only 30 communities across Canada, Longview receives a 50/50 match opportunity that gives the community a dollar of equipment buying power for every fifty cents they raise. This will help to significantly cover the costs of the structure and equipment for building a new playground, skate park or outdoor fitness park.

This will assist Longview in their aim for an extreme make-over of their community focusing on the beautification of the main street, a new playground as well as fitness park for adults, and the upgrade of their Serenity Park and Memorial Garden.

Longview is planning one massive, exciting build day slated for October 15th of this year. They will need at least 200 volunteers for the day so please see their website for opportunities on how you might be able to help them achieve their goal. And check out this congratulatory video from Let Them be Kids Founder and CEO Ian Hill to learn more about this FABULOUS award!

Of course, things have already been in motion for Longview who recently submitted an flash mob video to the Communities ChooseWell initiative and WON a draw for a Supernova playground piece ($6800 value) in the PlayWorks Flash Mob contest.

We can’t wait to see how things develop! And to check out the LTBK launch in Longview, click here!

Okotoks selected to participate in Canada Gets Active program

The Town of Okotoks was one of five communities selected by the Canadian Parks and Recreation and Association to participate in the Canada Gets Active program, which will provide local Grade 5 students with a Community Physical Activity Pass allowing free access to designated recreation facilities.

The four other Canadian communities selected include Coquitlam, Durham Region, Arnrprior, and Annapolis.

Modeled after Kingston Gets Active, and in conjunction with the Everybody get to play™ initiative, the main objective of Canada Gets Active is to increase physical activity involvement of Canadian children by increasing their access to and participation in community recreation facilities.

Congratulations to the Town of Okotoks for taking initiative to improve access to recreation opportunities and helping local residents get more active!