For over 80 years the Drumheller Kinsmen Club has been donated their time and money in ways in which benefit every person in the community, and can often be seen donating to local organizations and projects or serving free meals at town events.
Recently the club partnered with inmates at the Drumheller Institution to spruce up the signage at parks the club maintains throughout town.
The Kinsmen and employees of the Drumheller Institution coordinated an effort to improve the signage at McConkey, Greentree, Riverside and Partici parks, which the Kinsmen maintain, by giving inmates the opportunity to paint and improve some of the woodwork on the signs. The park signs, bright and sharp, look excellent in a tourist town that has been becoming increasingly more beautiful over the last few years, thanks to the municipality and groups like the Kinsmen Club.
“They look good as new,” said Kinsmen member Grant Daly. “I was pretty grateful for what they pulled off for us.”
Daly said the work the inmates put in was above and beyond what the club expected.
“It was good to just see that they were getting some good skills in there to transition them into the public. I was blown away with one guy’s carpentry skills.”
And even though they are walls away from the fruits of their labour installed in the parks, the craftsmen at the institution were just as excited to take on the project as Daly.
“It was just cool seeing how proud they were of what they accomplished. When I said thank you to him, you could just tell that he hadn’t had anyone be appreciative for what he did in a long time. He wasn’t from here, but said ‘it was so cool to be a part of your town.’ He didn’t have any affiliation or anything but he was still proud of what he did.”
The Kinsmen have plans in the works to potentially maintain Newcastle Beach in what the call a remediation project, which would see a gazebo, tables, and better beach rock put on the shore.
“Right not it’s just dirt and it’s pretty rough. We’ll be challenging other clubs to help out now.”
The Kinsmen Club will be hosting a booth and are interested to speak to prospective volunteers at the Sports Recreation and Arts Expo on September 7 from 4 to 8 pm at the Badlands Community Facility.
