By Abigail Popple, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, RMG
After two months of construction work and years of campaigning from the Parent Advisory Council, renovations to the Valemount Elementary School kitchen are nearly finished. The new space is roughly nine by eighteen feet – almost twice as large as the previous size of about nine by nine feet.
The upgrades cost the school district about $60,000, according to Scott Derksen, Supervisor of General Trades for School District 57.
Money for the project was drawn from the Annual Facility Grant – a fund administered by the Ministry of Education and Child Care for the maintenance of school facilities – according to Lynda Minnabarriet, Secretary-Treasurer for the School District. The District received about $3M from the grant this year, which has been dispersed for facility projects throughout the district, she said.
Derksen said new appliances will be installed before the start of school, including a larger fridge, an oven, and a dishwasher.
Additionally, a stainless steel food cart will be added to the kitchen for meal preparation. The wall cutout between the kitchen and the adjoining hallway will be used to pass out food to students, Derksen said, and within a few weeks a custom-fit metal shutter will be installed over the cutout to close the kitchen between mealtimes.
New panelling on the walls and the stainless steel meal cart will be easier to clean, making food preparation and serving more sanitary, according to Derksen.
“It’s all new millwork, and there’s a lot more storage because there was no storage before,” he said of the new cabinets in the kitchen. “And with the new prep tables and everything, they’ll be able to make quite a lot of meals (at once).”
Derksen was told about the renovation in late June, about two weeks before summer vacation started, leaving a brief window of time to complete the work before the beginning of school in September. However, work started the first week of July and it was smooth sailing from there, he said.
“This will be a great addition to the school and the community,” he said. “I love updating schools, and I don’t always get the opportunity to do something this nice.”
Rebecka Riddell-McKay, Principal of Valemount Elementary School, told The Goat she’s worked in other schools with small kitchens and is glad the school had the opportunity to upgrade the kitchen.
“We were trying to feed a whole school out of a tiny closet, and now we can much better meet the needs of students,” Riddell-McKay said.
The large space also gives the opportunity for teachers to bring groups of students in to build hands-on cooking skills, she added.
“As unfortunate as it is, many students rely on schools for meals,” Riddell-McKay said. “Now we’re better able to provide that.”
The Goat reached out to the Parent Advisory Council for comment. However, because the council does not have their first meeting of the new school year until mid-September, they declined to provide a comment.
