The North end of Portage la Prairie will be benefitting from the Community Foundation of Portage and District's granting process this year.

The Portage Community Revitalization Corporation's working with the Portage Parks Committee and the City to develop a fully wheelchair accessible playground by the BDO Centre. ROK Central (Recreation Opportunities For Kids) and the Tupper Street Family Resource Centre are also working at getting a resource centre in one of the Manitoba Housing units in the north-west area of the city.

"Receiving the grant from the Community Foundation of Portage and District is a great start to getting the project started, and completed," says Victoria Olson, PCRC's acting Executive Director. "We're now working on developing the Portage la Prairie Parks and Recreation master plan. This playground is in that plan, so we're really excited to be able to kick things off with a great start like this. It's exciting to be putting our money where our mouth is by saying we're going ahead with this plan but here's something that's come from it, and we're excited the playground will be installed this year."

Olson adds the city of Portage put out a tender for the playground proposal. After reviewing them with the parks committee they'll officially be able to move forward. She feels they'll have the structure up near the BDO Centre for the fall.

"We're really excited to be creating a hub in the Northwest corner of Portage, for the children there," says ROK Chair Sheri Blaylock. "We just really want to create a safe space for kids to come, and we'll have the Tupper Street Family Resource Centre there, public health nurses, and counselling services. That's going to be a really exciting thing for that side of town."

Tupper Street Family Resource Centre executive director Cathy Vanstone's excited about the partnership with ROK and feels this will be a huge boost for the community. She says it's hard to peg down what kind of services or programs will be offered at the centre, but they'll be having a soft opening later in the summer to get feedback from the community. She adds Manitoba Housing seems to be taking the lead and they don't have an official opening as of yet.