TWO local projects have secured funding from the Pick My Project program, with the full list of winners across the Wimmera announced this morning.
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The most votes went to a project to upgrade the tennis courts in Willaura to multipurpose courts, which secured $129,000 with 189 votes.
The second highest number of votes went to a project to replace the basketball court floors and scoreboard at Ararat’s Fitness Centre, which secured $192,000 with 182 votes.
This project will replace the existing flooring on court 1 and will include new sub-structure, flooring, sanding, varnish and polishing, which Basketball Association president Donna Dunmore said was desperately needed.
“It gets used every night … we were just waiting on the floor to fall through and then we couldn’t play any of our sports anymore,” she said.
“Currently we can’t put a scissor lift on that floor to fix the lights because it would just fall through.
“We didn’t know what we were going to do if we didn’t get the money … we would have had to beg borrow and steal.”
The courts are used by the basketball association and futsal players, which Ms Dunmore estimated totalled 450 players altogether who rely on the facility.
“We do play every night except Tuesdays … plus the squad teams play on there twice a week,” she said.
“So it’s a lot of people that would have missed out on a lot of sports.”
There would have been further consequences as well, Ms Dunmore said.
“We have a country basketball league so if the floor had fallen through it would have jeopardized our position in the league.”
Ms Dunmore said that other league teams come from as far away as Mount Gambier to play in Ararat.
Since receiving the news, Ms Dunmore’s phone hasn’t stopped ringing.
“I’m over the moon. I keep thinking of all the people I had to ring but most of them rang me,” she said.
“I’m so excited.
The project will also repair the existing grandstand and replace the broken scoreboard on court 1 if there is sufficient money left after the floor repairs.
“The scoreboards needs replacing as well,” Ms Dunmore said.
The projects which did not receive funding were:
- Floodlights for night bowling – Ararat
- Community Music for the Future
- Aradale Asylum historic archive
- Ararat West Primary School Shaded Area
- Life Is A Song workshop program – Ararat
- Life Is A Song workshop program – Ararat
- Community Sports Court – Buangor
- Beaufort Skate Park Upgrade
- Community Resilience: It's Everybody's Business
