Teams have a top quality sports field to play on, thanks to a donation by a local business, says Jackie Taylor, director of the Community Learning Campus.
Richardson Pioneer, an agri-business with a facility just outside town, donated $80,000 toward improvements to the field — located behind the Ralph Klein Centre. Those improvements were undertaken in partnership with Olds College and Chinook's Edge School Division.
In return, the field was named the Richardson Pioneer Sports Field. A ribbon-cutting ceremony signifying that was held Sept. 15, during home openers for the Olds College Broncos male and female soccer teams.
The field is primarily designed as a soccer pitch but could be used for other sports, Taylor says.
The playing surface is available for use by Ecole Olds High School Spartans and the Olds College Broncos, as well as some community elite soccer teams.
Taylor says the money enabled major improvements to the facility.
"As a result of this donation, we have worked on this field the past two years and were able to upgrade the turf quality and field surface, add lights to illuminate the field for evening practices, add a score clock and purchase field maintenance equipment to help with maintaining turf quality," she wrote in an email to the Albertan.
Mike Dezall, director of operations for the Richardson Pioneer Olds facility, says the company was pleased to help.
"At Richardson Pioneer, we are very proud of the community contributions that we are able to provide through our Richardson Foundation, which benefits many local projects such as this one," he wrote in an email.
"The Richardson Pioneer Sports Field will serve the soccer needs of both (the) Olds High School Spartans and the Olds College Broncos for many years to come and we are very proud of that."
