A $100,000 grant has been award to St. Joseph Catholic Highschool to help them climb towards funding for their future rock climbing wall.
The idea for the climbing wall came from their construction teacher Dale Shaw, who has a passion for climbing and wants to see the youth more involved in it. However, there is no place for the youth or anyone to climb in Grande Prairie currently.
Shaw plans to hold a rock climbing class for students at the school, and says once the wall is complete he thinks the students will find a connection with the sport.
“Students that take this course are going to find a love for it. I’m ecstatic, since covid and other things knocked out the wall at the college, we haven’t had anything in Grande Prairie to climb, a lot of us go to Dawson Creek or to Tumbler Ridge to get a little bit of climbing in.”
Shaw says this grant will put the school over halfway in regards to the budget, and says that this wouldn’t be possible without the grant.
“We are super grateful that we were able to get that grant, that is a huge start, it will be a kickstart for this thing. It wouldn’t have happened if we didn’t get a big bump like that. It gives us over half of what we are needing, we are well on our way to starting the project, but we definitely need and would love to have other people jump on board, to help us get that extra little bit that we need to get this wall built.”
Since Shaw is a current construction teacher, he added that he would love to have some of his students help put the wall together once the building starts.
There is no current time frame of when the wall will be started or completed, as they are still looking for a bit more funding, but Shaw says once the funding is all in order, it should not take long for the wall to be built.
It is still uncertain at the time if the wall will be open to the public.
