Local residents are thrilled about the construction of the Navan community pavilion, which is expected to finish in late June.
It was a cold night in February 2024 when community volunteers — tired of shovelling snow at the outdoor rink in the east-end village southeast of Orléans — came up with the idea.
The moment is recalled in a video posted on the Navan Community Association website.
“Why don’t we put a roof over this damn thing?” local resident Dan Reid, one of the leaders of the project, recalled saying that night at the outdoor rink.
His fellow volunteers agreed it would be nice, but would cost a lot of money. Reid responded: “What if I give you some money?”
“If you’re crazy enough to give me money, I’m going to build it for you,” said community association president Luc Picknell.
According to the video, this is where the “Navan Pavilion Project” dream was born.
The pavilion is the latest in a series of upgrades to the community’s outdoor rink, located at the Navan Fair Grounds and maintained entirely by volunteers. Other additions included full-size boards and a well to make flooding the rink easier, given its rural location.
Now under construction for more than six months, the pavilion’s benefits to the community extend beyond improving the rink.
It is set to serve as a central hub for the countryside community. A fundraising page dedicated to the initiative says it will host “a wide range of activities and services that cater to the diverse needs of residents.”
Picknell, who has spearheaded the project along with numerous other community members, says the pavilion will have many different uses year-round. It will be a hub for monthly markets, “Music in the Park”, motorsports shows and of course, the annual Navan Fair.
Picknell spent months applying for various grants to fund the project and received three. “One was a City of Ottawa Major Capital grant ($36,00) and another was a rural grant ($60,000),” he said.
The third grant ($200,000) came from Friends of the Mer Bleue, which is a community organization frequently involved with local issues and initiatives.
However, with a construction cost of around $1.1 million, the rest of the funding has come from local residents like Reid, as well as other organizations, such as the Navan Community Association and the Lions Club.
“Community members have been key to the success of this. So, we’ve been very, very lucky,” said Picknell.
In addition to monetary donations, local businesses have also contributed in other ways, such as donating raffle prizes. The contractor for the project, C&L Construction, owned by local resident Kevin Levesque, even agreed to do the project at cost, without added profit.
“Navan, being a smaller town, it helps drive momentum in these types of events because people know each other,” said Picknell. “People see each other at church, they’ll see each other at the rink, they’ll see each other at the curling club.”
The community-driven fundraising project has brought local residents together with the goal of creating the pavilion as a “vibrant centre of community life and activities”.
