Project leaders symbolically broke ground on the Stanley Community Pathway project between Morden and Winkler last week.
Officials from both cities and the RM of Stanley gathered to celebrate the start of construction on the 10 kilometre paved path that will run alongside the south side of Hwy. 14/3 corridor, separated from the road by the ditch.
Project committee chair James Friesen from the Stanley Trail Association shared that the tender for the path was recently awarded to Meseyton Construction, which plans to get to work this week and to wrap up paving sometime in fall.
“The community has talked about this idea for decades: how do we connect these communities with a pathway?” Friesen said, noting the plan has undergone a few different iterations and false starts, with numerous community members, business leaders, and companies like JDB Project Engineering working behind the scenes to keep it alive.
Wayne Rempel of Kroeker Farmers and James Elias of Triple E Developments have spearheaded a corporate donation campaign that has reached over $440,000.
“I’m still shooting for half a million,” shared Rempel. “I’m glad to be a part of it.”
“I think it’s good for the communities,” added Elias, noting it’s been a long process to get to this point, but the idea to connect the three communities was always a sound one. “We look at this as a big community—southern Manitoba—because we look at our employee base and probably 50 per cent come from Morden and surrounding areas versus just Winkler. So it’s good to connect to communities and we think it’s important to try to work together.”
“That’s the big story here,” agreed Friesen, noting the committee has long “felt the energy around three municipalities working together on a community project.”
Through the divisive years of the pandemic, this trail “became kind of a physical sign of connection,” he said.
The project has received $250,000 in funding from each of the three municipalities, along with grants from the provincial ($75,000) and federal ($2.1 million) governments.
The committee has also applied and received a few other grants soon to be announced.
Friesen figured they need another $325,000 in community donations to take the $4.2 million project over the top.
“That’ll help us have capacity to do some of the rest stations and things like that,” he said.
Donations can be made online at stanleytrailmanitoba.ca or by dropping off cheques payable to the Stanley Trail Association at the Morden, Stanley, or Winkler municipal offices.
