A sea of supporters for the Cochrane to Calgary trail took over the Links of GlenEagles for the second annual Mayor's Invitational Golf Tournament on July 25.
This year, the fundraiser came out swinging to raise a record-setting amount of about $85,000 with all funds going toward the Rotary Club of Cochrane-led trail project. The event raised $81,330 for BGC Cochrane and Area, Seniors on the Bow and the Lions Club last year.
Mayor Jeff Genung, who chose the trail project as the benefactor this year, said the event could be summarized into one word, "Awesome.
"It's so great to get out with people, recreate and have some time that's not in the boardroom; building community together," he said. "Everybody seemed pretty pumped and pleased to be contributing to connecting our community to Calgary with the trail. There were smiles everywhere."
The sold-out event hosted 144 players and was supported by countless sponsors. Genung said seeing the turnout reminded him of why he initially thought the trail project was the right cause to support this year.
From the time plans for the trail were first announced in November last year, the initiative has been presented as a grassroots people's project, not just for Cochrane but for the entire province of Alberta.
Pioneer families of the area, including the Haskayne, Harvie, Copithorne and Robinson families all donated large swaths of land to the project and Cochrane has played host to a Bike-A-Thon event put on by the Trail Steering Committee and community partners in an effort to raise funds for the estimated $20 million pathway.
"It's a real community, people's project. It just kind of felt right and easy to choose this to try and bring awareness to the project - for one - and then to help contribute in a way that I could help get it built sooner," said Genung.
It will take years of effort to build the estimated $20 million pathway that has been planned in stages. The Steering Committee hopes to have the first phase of the trail - a 38-kilometre-long stretch near the Bow River between Cochrane and the west side of the Rotary/Mattamy Greenway Trail in Calgary - complete by 2025.
The Trans-Canada Trail stretches more than 27,000 kilometres coast-to-coast, but the portion spanning from Calgary to Canmore, through Cochrane, is unfinished or is not usable. An estimated $3 million pedestrian bridge crossing the Bow River on the east side of Cochrane remains one of the largest fundraising and logistical efforts of the plan.
A future phase of the plan aims to connect Cochrane to the Legacy Trail in Canmore to complete the Trans-Canada Trail gap.
Trail Steering Committee member Dan Kroffat said the latest amount raised from the golf tournament is a big piece of what will help see the trail through to completion.
"We're still at the early stages of engineering and sorting out the legalities of the trail," he said. "There are approvals of land permits and things like that we still need to deal with, but every bit that we fundraise helps to get us one or two or three steps closer."
Kroffat added that the Steering Committee is currently looking into the feasibility of having the amount they raised from the golf tournament matched by the federal government. If this is successful, they will have raised around $170,000 for the project.
