Unsplash : Chris Liverani
Skating on a cold wintery afternoon is something most kids in our region know the feeling of. The crunch of ice below your feet, the tip of your nose turning red, and hot cocoa on the car ride home. More communities across London are able to enjoy that experience with 17 outdoor volunteer run rinks scattered around the city. The latest rink opened up in East Lions Park just a few weeks ago, with excitement from the community to use it.
Sabrina Sater is the Supervisor of Neighborhood Development and Support says that, the majority of rinks have gotten good feedback by the communities. “Everyone who participates in the program is so positive. And you know, this year particularly has been a great year because of the weather, it was made for creating ice and has been so cold, which is fantastic. So people are feeling really encouraged, it’s been quite easy to get these going, unlike other years where weather is not so good and it can kind of be discouraging because it takes so much work to get them started. And if you only have a couple of weeks, it’s not very fun. But this year people, you know, generally every year people are so thankful for the opportunity.” Sater is glad that the rinks are being well received by the public.
With more and more communities wanting to be a part of the initiative, Sater has been overwhelmed with requests. “Oh, we have received so much interest, like this program has been blowing up and I think it’s because obviously the options are quite limited now with COVID and you know the lockdown. Those people also have been in their neighborhoods now over the last few years more than ever. But there’s two others that could be opening up in terms of next year. I have a lot of people that I’m going to be emailing next year and in kind of getting them started on the program.” Sater sees how much this program means to the communities that are able to enjoy the outdoor rinks.
Although many are interested, not every community will have it’s own rink. “So, we ask that there’s at least six volunteers and they submit an application form. But before they submit their application form, there’s some things that they kind of need to have in place which is, access to a water source, that’s so important because these rinks need to be kind of flooded generally every day and things like that. So access to a water source, a good solid group of volunteers because it’s a lot of work, you’re going out there like, every day, you have to do checks every single day and report on how the rink is doing on a daily basis. It’s not too long of a report. It’s like you know, 30 seconds to fill out a little little quick survey, but we just want to make sure that they’re, you know, safe and being maintained properly.” Sater knows that these volunteers keeping the outdoor rinks are detrimental to the city in order for them to keep the rinks running.
With so much interest in the program, communities all over the city might have their own outdoor rink to entertain everyone, for everyone to enjoy that winter skating experience.
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