The Wallaceburg Lacrosse Association has found a new spot for their 7th annual winter camps, starting on January 25.
However, the site is far from new in the community of Wallaceburg.
The former D.A. Gordon Public School will be the location for the FREE camps, which will run Wednesday nights until March 29.
Jamie Knight, organizer of the camps, said he was hard pressed to keep the camps going, until the opportunity arose at the closed down school.
“The Kinsmen is too small for what we want to accomplish, I was also rejected by our school board to use our gyms,” Knight told the Sydenham Current.
“I was literally thinking of squashing the winter program and only running the Devils and my Bantams in preseason. I drove be D.A. and called Alex (Roudakov, the owner of the building) and we met a couple days later.”
The turn out for this year’s camps has been phenomenal, Knight said.
The Tyke/Novice division, running from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. and the Peewee/Bantam division, running from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. is now full, with over 20 kids signed up to participate. There are still openings in the girls-only division, intended for girls ages 12-18, which will run from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Wednesday’s.
There are still open spots in a separate camp being held in Chatham.
This camps will run on Sunday mornings from 10:30 a.m. to 12 p.m. starting on February 5 and running for seven weeks at the St. Clair College Healthplex.
All the camps are intended for new players who want to give lacrosse a try and current players who are looking to hone their skills. There is no cost to participate. Players will be given a stick to use during the camp, however a helmet gloves and running shoes are required.
D.A. Gordon has been vacant since 2014
The former Wallaceburg school officially closed it’s doors in June of 2014.
The decision was made to close the school after a lengthy accommodation review process by the Lambton-Kent District School Board in Wallaceburg.
Roudakov purchased the building in the fall of 2015.
He told the Sydenham Current his long-term plan is to turn the former school into a private daycare, school and college facility.
While the project would be a long-term goal, Roudakov said he would be interested in forming some community partnerships in the interim.
“I’m open for any partnership,” he said in October of 2015.
“I’m open to the community, open to the people, open to ideas. Open to the public completely.”
While the building has been back up for sale since being purchased, a for rent sign now hangs in the windows.
Knight said he is meeting with Roudakov to discuss future availability to run camps and clinics at the 430 King Street site.
For more information about the lacrosse camps, e-mail jknight@wallaceburglacrosse.com
Trillium funding for Wallaceburg Lacrosse
An injection from the province had a huge part in keeping these camps free, Knight said.
The announcement was made in April last year that the Ontario Trillium Foundation awarded Wallaceburg Lacrosse $266,800 to be used to further enhance their program.
Chris Dawson, an executive member with Wallaceburg Lacrosse, said approximately half of the grant will be used for new equipment for the program, along with re-doing the dressing room at Wallaceburg Memorial Arena.
Dawson said the other half of the grant will go towards running more lacrosse camps and making it affordable for kids.
“This allows kids to participate for free,” he said.
“In the past we have charged $80 or $100 for a camp and that starts to eliminate the amount of kids that can afford that, especially in the offseason. Now this will be free. We can attract kids from Walpole, Chatham itself. We can get into the schools. It really allows kids to try out lacrosse without the burden of financials getting in the way.”
Dawson said the tradition of lacrosse in Wallaceburg goes way back.
“There is such a tradition of lacrosse in Wallaceburg… more so than hockey, which you don’t find in a lot of small Canadian towns,” he said.
“The volunteers are fantastic. You will see the same families passed on from kid to kid coming back and coaching. That is a big part of this grant too. Hopefully with the clinics that we are putting on with sports psychology and fitness, and just how to play as a team and coach. The kids we are teaching in Novice and Peewee now, they are going to be coaches in 10 years. So it really sets up the organizations to continue on the tradition of lacrosse.”
For more information about Wallaceburg Lacrosse, visit: www.wallaceburglacrosse.com
