Pateros Ice Rink awarded $250,000 RCO grant

PATEROS – The North Central Washington Sports Rink and Event Center has been awarded a portion of $4.7 million in grants from the Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office (RCO). to help communities plan for outdoor recreation facilities.

 The grants were awarded to organizations in 19 counties and ranged from $12,927 to $250,000 and announced in an RCO media released earlier in May.

Sports Rink and Event Center, a nonprofit 501(c)(3), will use its $250,000 grant to plan for an outdoor ice rink and supporting facilities that when built would provide opportunities for ice skating, hockey, and figure skating in the winter and pickle ball, roller hockey, and roller skating in the summer. The rink site is on Pateros School District land along the Columbia River.

The grant will be used to develop site assessments and construction plans, conduct surveys and support community engagement.

North Central Washington has little or no outdoor opportunities for youth from November to March. The rink will emulate the affordability of Winthrop’s Sport Rink and offer affordable rentals, tickets and scholarships, free skating for fourth graders, field trips, discount pricing for groups, and season passes.

“These grants support community efforts to invest in recreation by helping them take the first step and begin planning,” said Megan Duffy, RCO director. “We know that spending time outside provides so many benefits, such as improved health, less stress and better social skills. We think that everyone should be able to spend time in a park or on a trail and get those benefits. These grants will assist communities in getting started to provide those valuable outdoor amenities.”

Many of the grants will help smaller communities write parks and recreation plans, which then can be used to apply for construction grants, and some will help larger communities plan specific projects in areas that lack public parks.

The Legislature first funded the Planning for Recreation Access grant program in 2021 as a way to fund planning projects in communities that lack adequate access to outdoor recreation opportunities. The first round of grants was announced in February and the second round was funded by the Legislature in its session that ended in April.