ARICHAT - The president of an Isle Madame group hoping to set up an ambitious park project next to the community's only active school building is making a pitch to Richmond Municipal Council to provide funding to ensure the project can proceed. 

Rachelle Samson, who heads up the Arichat Community Development Association (ACDA), updated the organization's plans for a community park adjacent to Arichat's Ecole Beau-Port during the June 13 Committee of the Whole meeting for Richmond Municipal Council. 

Samson told the meeting at the Richmond Municipal Building in Arichat that she and her organization have spent the past two years holding successful fundraising activities such as a weekly Chase The Ace draw, and the ACDA is also hoping to leverage government funding from the federal-provincial Canada Communities Building Fund, formerly known as the Canada-Nova Scotia Gas Tax Fund. 

However, Samson pointed out that one of the park's most significant developments, a splash pad, is estimated to cost between $50,000 and $60,000, and the ACDA is also trying to determine whether municipal assistance would be required to set up the necessary water flow for this part of the park or pump it directly from Ecole Beau-Port. 

"We're not interested in not doing it," Samson declared, pointing out that the Port Hawkesbury Community Park and its own splash pad routinely draws families from Isle Madame during the hot summer months. 

Also appearing at the June 13 Richmond Committee of the Whole meeting were two representatives of the Cape Breton tourism sector's largest lobbying group, Destination Cape Breton Association - specifically, CEO Terry Smith and the group's Richmond County board member, Cindy Walker, the operator of the St. Peter's-based Pepperell Place Inn. 

While Smith admitted that "in the last two years, it's been pretty challenging" due to the COVID-19 pandemic and its accompanying gathering-limit restrictions in Nova Scotia, Destination Cape Breton Association has continued its strategic planning for the entire 2020s and the group is already hopeful that a return of cruise ship traffic in the Port of Sydney and the re-launch of several high-profile community celebrations across Cape Breton will go a long way towards restoring the island's tourism sector.