March 1998 - News and Updates

Have you seen the Grand Trunk Trail thermometer in the last few days? There has been yet another significant donation of $5,000 from a local source. That amount is in addition to our very successful Valentine’s Day fundraising drive. There were 40 plaques with accompanying silk rose and card, tickets for the Garden House, and GTT T-shirts sold at that time which raised $1,665. That means the mercury in the thermometer has risen to $90,000! Wow!

The tickets for the upcoming International Dinner sponsored by the Baha’i Community on our behalf are going quickly. At last count, there were only five left. Call Carol at 284-1218 if you would like to join what promises to be an evening of exotic foods and uncommon entertainment. The Dinner will be on March 14/98 beginning at 6:00 p.m. at the Friendship Centre. The tickets cost $10. Terry and I are going. I love it when someone else makes dinner.

The GTT committee wants to extend our sincere appreciation to Bill Grant of Water Street. Bill allows us to use his hydro to light and warm the Garden House while it sits in the Stonetown Plaza. Without Bill’s generosity, the House would have been pretty frosty and pretty dim inside on those cold and overcast days.

Wednesday, March 4 is the deadline for tenders to be received for work on the Sarnia Bridge. After the acceptance of the best tender, we are on the way. You will see repair work being done on the abutments of the Bridge and railings being installed. Once that is done, the Kinsmen Club have offered to co-ordinate the deck work, i.e. affixing the planks to the runners which will extend the full length of the Bridge over the existing ties. And when that’s done, you know what…? We can walk on it – the beginning of the Trail. After two years of work, it’s gonna happen!

The GTT, the Salvation Army and the Kinsmen shared almost $600 that was collected from the parking meters between September and December '97. Thanks go to those of you who dropped in your nickels and dimes when you didn’t have to. Each group received $195.

Not everyone is the type who likes to sit on an organizing committee but there are folks who would like to help when the work on the Trail begins. We will need people to clear debris from the Trail, prune overhanging limbs from trees, help with the installation of the planks, etc. If you fit into this latter category, please let us know who you are so that we can contact you when the time comes. We will need your name and a phone number; that’s all.

Phone 284-1218 (answering machine will be on), write to Grand Trunk Trail, c/o P.O. Box 998, St. Marys N4X 1B6 or e-mail to gttsm@stonetown.com.

GREAT GARDEN HOUSE RAFFLE
Draw for $2,500 Garden House/Shed on Saturday, April 4, 1998.

If the weather stays this way, (or improves!) there will be no problems placing the House in that perfect spot in your yard. Tickets ($3.00 per ticket or 4 for $10.00) are still available Saturdays 10am-12 noon at "the House".

Saturday, March 14th, 1998
-- London Free Press

Small town with a big vision says thanks

A voluntary sub-committee of the St. Marys town council has been working for almost two years to create a walking trail at the north edge of town on the abandoned CN rail line. The trail, named the Grand Trunk Trail, will be 2,000 metres in length and will incorporate the 70-foot high Sarnia Bridge over the Thames River.

Last August the committee approached the Richard Ivey Foundation for financial support. To our delight, it provided us with a challenge grant dollar for dollar to a maximum of $15,000 if we raised that amount in three months.

We did and the Ivey foundation was as good as its word.

The Grand Trunk Trail committee, the Town of St. Marys and everyone who will use this remarkable facility extend thanks to the Richard Ivey Foundation for its generosity to a small town with a big vision.

Carol Robinson-Todd, Chairperson,
Grand Trunk Trail - St. Marys