MELFORT—The planned date to begin construction on the Melfort STARS heliport has been pushed back to June due to amounts raised not meeting what was initially expected.
“We’re definitely progressing, we’ve slowed down quite a bit since our launch because a lot of people go on holidays in January and February and March,” said Peggy George, chair of the North Central Health Care Foundation. “We’re still very hopeful that we’re going to be able to build in late spring or early summer.”
The location is set to be on a plot of land behind the Melfort Hospital, with Higgins Avenue West to one side of the heliport and West Street to the other side.
Previously, the goal was for the fundraising campaign to be finished in late February, with construction starting in the months to follow.
George said while June is the new goal to start construction, it isn’t etched in stone either.
“Maybe things will go along father than we thought, but there are a lot of things involved and paperwork that needs to get getting scrutinized and a lot of variables that have to be checked out before [we put] shovel in the ground.
Approximately $468,000 of the fundraising goal of $600,000, including in-kind donations, was raised by the launch of the fundraising campaign in January.
“We’re positive that it is going to happen.”
George said the foundation had success for the first time using a 50/50 lottery as a fundraiser, despite it not having the reach they initially intended.
The lottery fundraiser, which recently ended, earned $25,170 through ticket sales. The winner got half of the earnings resulting in the heliport raising $12,585.
“We had some growing pains with it, it was a very new type of fundraiser— we had never done it before,” George said. “So when you try something different you always experience the odd bump or two you haven’t anticipated.”
One problem the committee was faced with is that due to regulations, they couldn’t sell tickets to non-Melfort residents. The initial goal was to have the lottery sell tickets across the province.
“As it turned out, you had to be in Melfort to make the purchase. So that kind of limited our sales, but at the end of the day we’re happy with the outcome, as they say, being that was our first go at that type of lotto.”
