Richmond Receives True Sport Community Award
28 March 2007
The City of Richmond is proud to be the recipient of the Bell Canada True Sport Community Award, which was handed out at the prestigious Canadian Sport Awards on March 23, 2007 at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg. The Bell True Sport Community Award honours communities that are living examples of fair and ethical sport initiatives.
Richmond’s True Sport Community Award submission highlighted five examples of how the City, Richmond Sport Council and community sport groups worked together to provide opportunities for Richmond residents to experience the many benefits that come with participating in community sport activities. The program submissions included:
- The Hugh Boyd Artificial Turf Complex project, which involved the City and an alliance of 13 community soccer groups working together to develop four new artificial turf playing fields in the community.
- The City of Richmond’s “Everyone Can Play” Field Sport Strategy and Playbook for Action, which involved City staff and 29 Richmond field sport groups. Working together, a vision and five year action plan was developed to improve field sport program delivery and facility upgrades in the community.
- The “Everyone Can Play” Soccer Program, which was a joint effort between the Richmond Youth Soccer Association, the City of Richmond and the Richmond Food Bank. Soccer equipment and registration in community soccer was offered to children of Richmond families who attended the Richmond Food Bank.
- The Richmond Arenas Community Association, which worked closely with City staff to provide ice sport activities and events and development of arena facilities.
- The City and School District No. 38’s agreement, which provided Richmond community youth groups free access to school gyms in return for the City cutting the schools’ grass. Richmond public school students also got free access to the City’s outdoor sports fields.
Other Canadian Sport Award winners include:
- Female Athlete of the Year – Cindy Klassen, five time Olympic medallist in long track speed skating;
- Spirit of Sport Story of the Year – Clara Hughes, Olympic medallist in long track speed skating; and
- Coach of the Year – Neal Marshall, coach of Canada’s Olympic long track speed skating team.
The world will get to see these winners compete at the Richmond Oval during the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.
Richmond resident Darcy Marquart, a World Champion in W2 pairs rowing, along with her team-mate Jane Rumball, were runners up in the Partners of the Year category.
City staff representative Eric Stepura, Manager of Sports and Community Events, attended the event, presented a slide show profiling Richmond as a Venue City for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games and accepted the True Sport Community Award on behalf of the City and the many community sport administrators, coaches, officials and volunteers who provide sport opportunities that enrich the quality of life in Richmond.
