The Kinsmen Club of Lake Cowichan has just completed inserting a brand new deck at the Duck Pond.
The deck cost the club around $1,000 in material which was all fundraised for and comes out of the kinsmen’s service budget.
“The deck was built by us, it was all volunteer and of no cost to the town,” said club president Troy Douglas. “There is now a brand new deck on the upstream float with no holes in it. The old one was getting worn out.
“We fundraise throughout the year through casinos, bars and the Ducky Derby (at Lake Days) as well. The wood was all sourced locally and Irly Bird helped us with that.”
Douglas has been president of the club for the past two years and a kinsmen himself the past five.
“We’ve been in the town since 1944 and the Duck Pond was one of the first parks to be put in,” he explained. “It’s very popular with the kids in the summertime.”
So much so, the Kinsmen Club is now turning to another goal being a new playground at the pond.
“We are going to apply for a grant to try and get a new playground. Dalton Smith (manager at the Cowichan Lake Education Centre) is going to help us and have a look at our old applications as we’ve always been turned down by the government. We’re hoping to fundraise about $30,000 and then get a grant that either matches that or doubles that.”
Douglas showed up at the town hall a couple months back to see if council would be on board with the new playground vision.
“The town is fully behind us. They maintain that park for the most part and if anything breaks, we go down and fix it. We are going to be putting in new backs to the benches down there too.”
The installation of the new deck took the group about eight hours and Douglas also wished to thank Jornic Marine Construction for lending the kinsmen the equipment necessary.
“Our motto is serving the community’s greatest need. The people that need help, we help them out,” said Douglas.