Bottle drive underway as local group bids to bring splash pad to Shelburne

July 23, 2020 · 0 Comments

Written By PAULA BROWN

The Shelburne Splash Pad Committee is holding a bottle drive to help raise funds to bring a splash pad to the Shelburne community.

“We wanted to kick off with something fun,” said Alexandra Georgie, co-chair of the committee. “We thought it was a really great idea to do a bottle drive with it being the summertime and more people are having their adult beverages.”

The bid to bring a splash pad to town has been an ongoing project for the last few years by the Shelburne Rotary Club and is being organized by the Splash Pad Committee, headed by co-chairs Alexandra Georgie and Rotary member Sandra Gallaugher.

“We’ve been looking for a project in the town that we can do and the splash pad has come up several times,” said Gallaugher. “So that’s when we decided to work towards getting a splash pad going.”

“There are a lot of surrounding communities that have a splash pad and for myself and the group it’s just a fantastic activity to have available to children and families within our community,” said Georgie.

In Oct. of 2019 the Splash Pad Committee met with Town Council to present the project. The initial presentation outlined a draft of the projected design, locations for the splash pad, costs for the project and fundraising. The committee met again with council in early 2020 where the location for the splash pad was decided to be Greenwood Park.

“The past year has really been about a lot of research, making sure we are organized and making sure we have all of the facts that will lead us to the most success,” said Georgie.

The committee presented a fundraising goal of $300,000 based on researched costs and has raised $75,000 through a private donor and through a Rotary Club donation says Gallaugher.

After seeing the success of the bottle drive for other businesses and organizations in the community, the committee decided that a bottle drive would be the first method of fundraising.

“We thought it was an easy fundraiser to do and people seem to like doing bottle drives, donating their bottles to a cause,” said Gallaugher. “We thought it was one of the easier projects to get started on at this point in time.”

Georgie also noted the implications following COVID-19 into the committee’s choice to use a bottle drive as the first method of fundraising.

“We don’t want to stress anyone out in the community, including small business with going and asking them for funds right now.”

The Splash Pad bottle drive will take place from Aug. 3 to Aug. 8 and bottle can be dropped off at Shelburne Family Chiropractic.