“The Beautiful Project” in Altona is poised to get a big funding boost next week as the recipients of Tim Hortons Smile Cookie Week.
From April 27 to May 3, the proceeds from every Smile Cookie sold at the Altona restaurant will go to support the construction of the community’s future soccer hub.
“We were thrilled to have been approached by them—they came to us,” said Altona Soccer chair Karl Enns. “It speaks very highly of their interaction with and staying involved in the community.”
Altona Soccer volunteers will be helping to decorate dozens of boxes of cookies next week so they can be sold at the restaurant and also delivered to businesses and organizations throughout the community.
“Based on the numbers from last year, we would love to see 10,000 cookies sold,” Enns said, noting pre-orders have already begun arriving. “This is the week for pre-orders. Businesses will have received emails and they’re going to see flyers and posters and lawn signs—it’s all over the place.”
Pre-ordering allows them to best plan for sales, especially large-scale orders, but you can also simply stop by Tim Hortons anytime starting Monday to buy a cookie or one of the plush toys available to help the cause.
The Beautiful Project encompasses Altona Soccer’s $600,000 phase one plan to build multiple new soccer pitches—including a FIFA-sized pitch to allow for higher-level play—and surrounding greenspace on six acres of land behind the Millennium Exhibition Centre. Phase two, priced at about $150,000, will redevelop the existing community soccer pitches at W.C. Miller Collegiate and École Parkside School.
Fundraising is off to a good start, Enns shared.
“The response from the community already has been really great. Everybody’s very positively supportive,” he said, noting they’re already raised about a third of what’s needed to complete the ambitious project.
The plan is to get started on phase one this summer.
“There’s definitely a lot of prep work that’s going to be done,” Enns said. “If everything goes to plan, we’ll start excavating one of the pitches, which requires digging down and putting in layers and drainage.”
The hope is to have the first phase done in 2027. Phase two will then follow as funds allow.
“We’re phasing the project over this year and next year, but if we need to extend that into another year, we’re totally okay with doing that,” Enns said. “Ultimately, we want a really great quality soccer park at the end of the day.
“Soccer has been growing, not only in Altona but across the region, southern Manitoba, and even across Canada,” he said of the importance of this project to the community. “Youth registration numbers, year over year, have been increasing anywhere from 10-15 per cent.”
They’re also seeing increased interest on the adult level, with plans in the works to launch men’s and women’s teams to compete in provincial leagues in the future.
“To do that, we need a home pitch that we can play on that is of the appropriate size and quality to compete,” Enns said of the FIFA-sized field in the plans.
More larger, higher quality pitches will also allow Altona to play host to more sporting events at all age levels.
“Our high school teams do phenomenal. We make the provincials finals almost every year,” Enns said, “but we’re unable to host the provincials because of the limited number of pitches in the community, at least quality pitches that can be used for tournament purposes.
“With this soccer park together with the schools and their facilities, we can host any size of soccer related event that we would want.”
To learn more about the project, make a donation, or book your Smile Cookie pre-orders, head to leagues.teamlinkt.com/altonasoccer.
