The home of the Loreburn 19ers is about to get a $20,000 improvement after being named one of five grand winners of a Mars Bars Play Your Part Promotion.
The contest was open to rinks across Canada with five eventually moving to the final round and a chance of $20,000 if they could get enough pins, found in the wrappers of Mars Bars, entered online. Loreburn faced off in the final round against rinks in Mission, B. C., London, Ont., Warwick, Que. and Marsh Lake, Yukon.
Vanessa Tastad, Loreburn recreation board president and village councillor, said the whole village jumped behind the cause. She said, if chosen, the arena proposed to paint, add stick racks and door closures and install new flooring in their two new dressing rooms at the 48-year-old arena, which sees around 50 skaters come through its doors weekly for their hockey, figure and public skating fix.
“Everyone was pretty pumped around here through the whole cause,” said Tastad. “The rink sold just Mars Bars. The (high school) football team sold Mars Bars at their games and anything that the school had on sold Mars Bars. Everybody was entering pins and they’d drop them off for me to enter at the RM office too. Everyone was really good.”
Tastad said she found out they had been selected to receive the $20,000 prize through a phone call from Mars Bars on Dec. 27, with the announcement going national Jan. 8 informing all five rinks that they would get the full $20,000 for their great work getting their communities rallied around the cause.
“It was a pretty good Christmas present,” she said.
Loreburn is scheduled to receive the cheque by the end of January with the improvements beginning in February or March. Tastad said they will first have to get “organized” concerning getting quotes for the work, but the $20,000 will fully cover everything that needs to be done.
“We have two other dressing rooms that we can use while we’re in the process (of renovating), so we’ll be able to keep the rink running through the work,” she said.
Tastad said she first sent in the application to Mars Bars in March and were informed they advanced to the second round of competition two months later. They was picked as one of the five finalists in June and the community has been eating nothing but Mars Bars ever since.