The Stanley community pathway project got another major financial boost this week with a $450,000 donation from Kroeker Farms.
Stanley trails association representative James Friesen noted a lot of the initial drive for the project to connect Morden and Winkler came from a few partners such as Triple E Developments and Wayne Rempel and Kroeker Farms.
“That was the kind of impetus that our committee really benefited from,” he said. “Knowing that organizations like Triple E and Kroeker Farms were supporting us moving forward was super critical.”
“In honour of our founder, Abram Kroeker, I thought it was a great idea. We thought it was a great idea,” said Rempel.
He noted their thought to support the project went back perhaps about six years when they heard about the idea of a pathway to and from Boundary Trails Health Centre.
“For us, it’s important because we have lots of employees from Morden. A lot of our operations are in the Morden area,”he noted. “For us, it’s great to have these two wonderful communities connected by this pathway for people to enjoy.”
He added it has also always been a priority for them to invest in and give back to the communities.
“It’s really important to us and our shareholders, our employees and our board of directors,” he said. “We’re really keen about this idea, and when I presented it to them, they really got on board quickly.
“One of the things that really motivated us was our vision statement is healthy food and healthy world … so we’re just really proud of our healthy food, and we also care about having a healthy world and healthy people,” he said. “We think this is a great pathway to encourage exercise and personal fitness and wellness.”
Friesen said it was a major boost for the project.
“And this is such a community project. It’s multiple communities involved in it, and it’s in the corridor,” he said, noting that seeing such widespread support from across the region has been really gratifying.
“Eighty per cent of this project has been funded through grant writing, external money coming in from the federal, provincial and municipal sources and then businesses now like Kroeker Farms and even individual community members.”
And Friesen noted they are getting close to completing the project and paying for it as well to finish it off.
“We’re closing the gap … but the thing too is there’s been no compromises as far as the quality of the pathway,” he noted. “So to build it well and to build it in a way that’s going to keep its value was something that we didn’t back down from,” he said. “We’re very close to finishing it, and we’re looking forward to grand opening.”
