Navan residents are thrilled about the construction of a community pavilion, expected to finish in late June.
It was a cold February night in 2024 when community volunteers — tired of shovelling snow at the outdoor rink in the village southeast of Orléans — came up with the idea, a moment recalled in a video 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, recalls saying that night.
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.
This is where and when the “Navan Pavilion Project” dream was born.
The pavilion will be the latest upgrade to the community’s outdoor rink, located on the Navan Fair Grounds and maintained by volunteers. Other additions have included full-size boards and a well to make flooding the rural rink easier.
The pavilion’s benefits to the community should extend beyond the rink as it is set to serve as a hub for the 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 with other community members, says the pavilion will have many different uses year-round such as monthly markets, “Music in the Park,” motorsports shows and the annual Navan Fair.
Picknell spent months applying for 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 Mer Bleue, 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, as well as 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 has brought residents together with the goal of creating the pavilion as a “vibrant centre of community life and activities”.
