James Smith Cree Nation donates $116k to Weldon Playground Project

Tears of joy overwhelmed many of those who attended a pancake breakfast fundraiser in Weldon on Saturday morning.

The town’s residents and people from neighbouring communities joined together at the Weldon Auditorium for the fundraiser, which helped raise money for a new playground in the town in honour of a fallen member of their community, Wes Petterson.

Petterson was one of the 11 victims of Myles Sanderson during his mass stabbing rampage in September of 2022. Petterson was the only victim from Weldon, while the other 10 were from James Smith Cree Nation (JSCN).

The Weldon Playground Project was created in February with the goal of raising $150,000 for the new playground. During the pancake breakfast fundraiser on Saturday, the playground committee received a major boost in funding.

JSCN Chief Kirby Constant, along with Chief Calvin Sanderson of the Chakastaypasin Band and Coun. Adam Whitehead of the Peter Chapman Band, presented a cheque to the fundraising committee members for $116,000 to help build the playground.

“We’re speechless,” said Jamie Petrie, co-director of the Weldon Playground Project. “We were definitely not expecting this. We figured we would be having at least a dozen more pancake breakfasts.

“It gets us our playground,” she continued. “That covers all the costs of the equipment and everything else that we need … We will have our playground this summer.”

Sanderson said the donation was in the works for some time.

“We been thinking about this for quite a while, our team,” he said. “We also have a wellness team back at home that’s looking at building a wellness centre, so we thought that maybe while they were fundraising for the playground in Weldon, the committee thought, ‘Let’s contribute something to that.’

“Part of that wellness is part of Weldon too, and we wanted to welcome the community with open arms with the donation. It’s a good start.”

Constant said the donation is another step towards reconciliation.

“The donation came from our Northern Lights Corporation Development Ltd. and every quarter we have some money that we come by, and we utilize it to enhance our communities,” he explained.

“We felt that this time, (it was) time to give back to other communities other than our own, kind of that reconciliation process and a nation-to-nation building kind of thing where we can help other communities besides our own. We’re all one big cohesive community in Saskatchewan, so it’s good on our part to help communities suffering just as much as ours.

“I know we’ve always gotten along in the past and we’ve always been good neighbours, and I think now they’re going to be able to rely on us more if they ever need help. They can come to us instead of going to the provincial government or municipality government, and so we can start building that partnership for stuff like this.”

To add to the day, Prince Albert MP Randy Hoback brought a gift to the family of Petterson on behalf of the federal government.

Hoback presented Petterson’s sister-in-law with a Canadian flag that was flown on the Peace Tower at Parliament Hill in Ottawa. He added that he will give an additional Peace Tower flag to the Village of Weldon which will be flown at the playground once it’s completed, and will also give a third Peace Tower flag to JSCN later this summer.

While the Weldon Playground Project now less than $35,000 away from its goal, Petrie said that there is still work to do.

“Everybody thought we had pipe dreams and we’re like, ‘No, we know that we’re going to get a playground, we’re going to work our butts off and do what we can,’” she said. “We have a bottle drive next week, we have a silent auction online, and in June we have a community-wide family fun day planned.”

She said the family fun day will feature a petting zoo, dunk tank, garage sales and a barbecue, among many other activities.