The rink in the Village of Loreburn sees around 50 people a week walk through its doors during the wintertime for hockey, figure skating, public skating and power skating and, as a result, the 48-year-old arena has received some wear and tear, but thanks to Mars Bars upgrades are in the works.
Vanessa Tastad, Loreburn recreation board president and village councillor, said Mars Bars informed her in June they were picked as one of five arenas from across the country that would be receiving $5,000 from the chocolate bar company and as much as $15,000 more depending on how their Mars Play Your Part Promotion unfolds.
“We’ll be putting in new flooring in both of the dressing rooms plus the hallway out to the ice surface,” said Tastad, adding work will begin once the promotion closes at the end of December and they find out how much they will actually receive. “We’ll also be doing dry walling we had to finish (in the hallway) and some painting and we’ll get some stick racks (for the dressing rooms) and some door closures, so just some finer things.”
Tastad said the amount of money Loreburn Arena will ultimately receive depends on how many people buy a Mars Bar with the red strip on it and then go to the Mars Play Your Part Promotion website and enter the pin off the wrapper. She said every time a pin is entered $5 is “unlocked” from the promotion and depending on how many pins are entered a total of $75,000 could be unlocked at the beginning of the New Year, which will be split equally among the five selected arenas.
“Everybody in the community is helping out,” she said. “The rink will only be selling Mars Bars till December and we’ll try out some deep-fried Mars Bars too. Loreburn School is selling them at their football games and just regular people are buying boxes and asking if they could go out and sell them.”
Tastad sent in the application for Loreburn Arena, which was essentially “an essay about what our project is and what our goal was,” to Mars Bars in March and received notice they had advanced to the second round of the competition in May. She said the company then asked her a few more questions about what exactly they had planned for the arena.
“We got the phone call (in June) that we were picked based on our application and our need for the project,” she said. “We’re just so excited to be picked and we hope everyone helps out by buying Mars Bars and entering their pins online.”