December 13, 2022 5:00am
The Listowel Memorial Arena Park Committee has a new fundraising page built into the North Perth website.
Committee Chair, Jerry Rozendal, says the design for the park has been decided on and it will feature numerous amenities.
“An interactive playground for the kids, it’s a naturalized playground. There’s bench seating, an ample amount of tress, there’s going to be an area at the front of the park for a vendor’s market or flea market,” Rozendal shared.
The community was surveyed before the old arena even came down, with the large majority asking for a memorial to be placed in the park for those who died in the 1959 arena collapse, as well as many other requested features.
“84 percent wanted a heavy tree element to the park. 69 percent wanted walking paths, and another 67 percent wanted an outdoor play area for kids and the possibility for an outdoor skating surface for public skating in the wintertime,” added Rozendal.
The design of the Listowel Memorial Arena Park will feature a poignant memorial to the victims of the 1959 arena collapse. Rozendal says the memorial aspect will include the names of the victims on what will resemble hockey boards overlooking the park, resembling the inside of a hockey rink.
“On the wall itself they’ll have the eight names of the kids and the recreation director that died in the collapse. That will be out overlooking eight memorial trees that will be different from all the other trees,” said Rozendal. “At the base of this curvature of the granite or concrete, there will be seven pairs of bronze children’s skates and one pair of adult skates, to reflect who they belonged to.”
Rozendal says there will be events planned for 2023 to help raise more money for the project, which will cost roughly $1.4 million.
“We’re planning a spring dance with a 50’s theme to it and a silent auction and things like that. We’ve already done a car show, where we raised a couple thousand dollars from that,” Rozendal stated. “$1.4 million is a lot of money. But over the past three months we’ve been able to secure over $200,000. So it’s gonna take over a year or so to get this done, but I’m hoping we get shovels in the ground next year, and with the backing of council, we’ll get it going.”
Click here to donate. You can also email Jerry Rozendal at rozys4@outlook.com or call him at 519-291-5822 for more information.