Community association flooded with offers to replace stolen snowblower

After a chaotic and disappointing start to the week, the community of Eastview is ending it on a high.

The Eastview Community Association’s snowblower, which is used to clear a local outdoor rink, was stolen from a shed during the snowstorm that hit the city last weekend. While the stolen snowblower hasn’t been tracked down yet, the community could be getting a replacement in the very near future.

Jon Holaday, the rink co-ordinator for the Eastview Community Association, said multiple businesses and people across Saskatoon reached out to him offering to buy or donate a snowblower to the community rink, and the messages started coming just hours after he shared his story.

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Holaday said he was “quite surprised” to see so many people and businesses reach out.

“It was within the morning I had some emails coming through to our community association web page and some calls as well,” he said.

Holaday and others within the community association couldn’t believe it.

“Our community association’s blown away by what’s happened. They didn’t expect any of it. We’ve kind of put on pause the insurance claim, which would save us our deductible and some cash as well,” Holaday explained. “It’s just a really good feeling that we have a community that’s pushing for our little community.”

Once Holaday gets the new snowblower in his hands, he said he will hopefully be able to start working on the Eastview outdoor rink. He said he’s excited to get to work and hopes to have the ice surface cleared and ready for skating in time for the Christmas holidays.

“We’re attempting to get the piled-up snow removed soon by the school board and hopefully have it cleared out this weekend or early next week and start flooding right away, as long as the weather holds out,” he said.

Holaday said people have also offered him their old snowblowers if he can fix them up. Because of that generosity, Holaday is considering paying it forward by repairing the old machines to help other communities as well.

“We’re contemplating the idea of maybe taking in some of the ones that have been offered to us that need repairs and fixing them up,” Holaday said.

“Maybe handing them out to the other community associations to see who needs one, and see what we can do if we can have a bigger benefit than just for our small community association.”