By Jennifer Quam

The McBride skate park will be holding its first fundraiser of this year in an attempt to gather enough funds together to get the skatepark up and running.

In his first official project as the new Village Councillor for McBride, Sean Tobin said he held meetings last week with kids from the both the high school and the elementary school to discuss different fundraising ideas they had and how they can make the project happen.

“We want the kids to be really involved and move the project forward rather than us just doing it for them,” said Tobin.

Tobin said that May 19 the committee will be holding a bottle drive. “We are looking for parent volunteers to drive the kids around and help collect the bottles,” he said. “There has also been an account set up at the Bottle Depot so if people want to take their own bottles in they can just ask to credit the skate park account.”

Tobin said that currently the skate park is holding approximately $10,000 to $12,000 but still needs to put in some work to reach the goal of the required $25,000 for the park.

“Our goal is the get this going this year. If nothing else it would great to get the pad laid and even have just a couple pieces of equipment and add to it later,” said Tobin. “I think it would motivate the kids more if they were able to see something in place.”

The skate park will be located next to the Evangelical Free Church near the ball diamond off Second Avenue.