OLDS – There are just a couple of weeks left in a six-week drive to raise funds to operate Kirsten’s Place, the Mountain View Emergency Shelter Society’s (MVESS) emergency shelter in Olds.
To raise those funds, tickets for two playhouses are being sold. The goal is to raise $88,000.
As of June 9, (week 3 of the drive) $32,000 had been raised, coordinator Debora Rice-Salomons said in an interview, so there’s a long way to go.
Rice-Salomons says the playhouses are a sight to behold.
“They're each worth $8,800 they're very fancy-dancy,” she said. "They are eight feet by nine feet, and they’ve got lots (of features). They have a have a loft in them, and they've got a porch and they're absolutely gorgeous.”
Rice-Salomons said realtor Mary Jane Harper did up a sales sheet on them “as if your realtor was selling a house.”
Rice-Salomons got the idea for the playhouse campaign from others she’d seen or been a part of. She first saw one in Red Deer, then helped with a similar project in Fort McMurray in 2007.
“Project playhouses, there's lots of them all over. They're generally associated with women's shelters. It's sort of a safe place to play,” she said.
“That's the concept, and that's sort of why the Project Playhouse is associated with women's shelters."
Once the campaign is over, on July 1 in the Bank of Montreal parking lot, The day will be kicked off with a pancake breakfast.
Then two teams: the Build Avengers and the League of Extraordinary builders will compete to build the playhouses by 4 p.m.
At that point, children from the BGC Olds and Area (formerly known as the Boys and Girls Club of Olds & Area) will judge the playhouses and declare a winner.
Rice-Salomons is looking forward to that competition.
“When we built it in Fort McMurray, we had two teams, and the teams had so much fun,” she said. “We had the firefighters on one side and the police on the other and the teams were doing shenanigans.
“One stole the other guy's shingles, but the RCMP officer arrested that the member of the team. It was just a fantastic day of the community coming together. They built them.”
If someone wins a playhouse but doesn’t want it, Rice-Salomons said, “the charity has agreed to accept your playhouse as a donation, and you get an $8,800 tax receipt.”
To make it as fun as possible, teams have been competing against each other to sell the most tickets.
The first week, there was a Tool Time throw-down between hardware stores which was won by Sundre Home Hardware.
During the second week there was a big wing competition, which was won by Tracks Pub.
The third week was the Battle of the banks, which was won by the Bank of Montreal in Olds.
This past week was the campground challenge. Next is the rodeo rumble.
“It’s going well, but we've got three weeks to go,” Rice-Salomons said. We need to come together as a community and help get the shelter's doors opened and see them on their way.
“This is, a great cause, a great need. They desperately need us to help them, and we want to be there for them,” she said.
