Rotary helps with upgrades to Ag Complex

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Published on Tuesday, June 20, 2017

Kate Jackman - Atkinson
The Neepawa Press

With the summer season underway, visitors to the Beautiful Plains Agricultural Society Complex might have noticed a much needed update.  This spring, members of the Neepawa Rotary Club were busy upgrading the bathrooms at the local site, which not only hosts agricultural events, but also baseball games and the Neepawa Fair.

Neepawa Rotary Club president Don Schmall explains that the club originally built the bathrooms in the late 1970s, when the town hosted the Summer Games.  The facilities have served the community well since then, but the fixtures were all original and Schmall said that the club undertook a project to replace the toilets, urinals and sinks. “It needed an upgrade,” he said.
Schmall explained that the Club contributed $6,500 to the project, $2,000 of which came from the Rotary Foundation, while the rest represented proceeds from the club’s annual TV auction. They also received some money from the Municipality of North Cypress-Langford. Volunteers from the Rotary Club tore out the old fixtures and provided most of the labour, which included jackhammering out the cement to accommodate the new fixtures. Rotarians provided about 40 hours of volunteer time, as well as time donated by other community members, such as local plumber Ralph Dreger, who donated his time to install the new fixtures. 

In June, the project also received a grant from the Beautiful Plains Community Foundation for the installation of automatic hand dryers and keypad locks for the doors. Schmall noted that locks were needed for the facility, as they have had problems with vandalism in the past.  Now, each user group will get a code to open the washroom facilities for their events.
Schmall noted that the upgrades will give the site more suitable facilities to host events, such as the Manitoba Senior AA baseball provincial championships scheduled for later this summer.