BONNYVILLE – Rachel Strumecki, president of the Dupre Community League, accompanied by fellow Dupre Community League member Carmen Corbeil, asked the MD of Bonnyville council to takeover grounds maintenance in place of granting the league a $5,000 Community Action Grant.
“There is only four active members. No one is interested anymore in Dupre - in being a part of anything that we do there," said Strumecki.
During Strumecki’s four-year run as president, they attempted to get more members active and host more events with limited success.
“We tried a flea market about two or three years ago and it was successful the first year we did it, and then the next year nothing,” said Strumecki.
She said the grounds are in great condition with two ball diamonds, a playground, and 10 camping stalls with full hookup service, though aside from one baseball tournament, the sites go mostly unused.
“In 2005 when Carmen and Glenn and my husband Chris Strumecki were part of the community, when they started doing this, they went in and they fixed up the grounds and the ball diamonds. They got it all beautiful,” explained Strumecki.
Strumecki told council that not only can they not recruit members, but they cannot find anyone to pay to cut the lawn.
“Honestly, we're tired of it. We're fed up. We don't know what to do anymore. We don't know how to bring people in. We have new families who have moved into the Dupre area and they're not interested. We can't even get their kids to cut the grass, and we pay $50 an hour for grass cutting,” said Strumecki.
It has fallen on the members to do all the lawn care, which has become very time consuming.
Strumecki assured council that everything is already set up, and taking over would require relatively little maintenance, especially as MD workers are already in the area doing lawn and weed maintenance.
Coun. Ben Fadeyiw thanked Strumecki and Corbeil for their efforts.
“It’s a tough place to be, so I’ll definitely take this as information, and we’ll try to figure out what’s best for the community,” said Fadeyiw.
Coun. Dana Swigart added, “I was on the Ardmore community board for years, and it's always hard. It's too bad it had to come to this.”
Deputy Reeve Josh Crick made the motion to accept the request as information and direct administration to bring back the report to a future meeting for council's consideration.
Reeve Barry Kalinski and Coun. Mike Krywiak remarked on the excellent state of the ball diamonds and thanked the Dupre Community League for their efforts.
