Kid's petition nets swing set

Thanks to a plucky nine-year-old and a group of neighbourhood friends, there’s finally a swing set in Belmont Park.

With the help of their parents, Sitka Porter put together a petition in April asking the City of Kamloops to install swings at the North Shore playground.

Belmont Park, 709 Cumberland Ave., was temporarily closed this week as work crews installed a jaunty red swing set. The park re-opened for the excited kids on Friday.

“It’s really fun — and I can’t believe my petition worked,” Porter said, adding they think the swings improve the playground “a lot.”

“There’s a lot of kids in this neighbourhood and a swing is essential in the park.”

'Really exciting'

Joined by other neighbourhood kids this past spring, Porter knocked on neighbours' doors with aplomb and ended up getting about 100 physical signatures for the petition. An online petition received about 140 more.

The petition took off and Neilina Carmichael, Porter’s mom, was able to get in contact with the city’s parks division.

In June, she was told that due to upgrades planned for Albert McGowan Park, a swing set would become available.

“He said there’s swing sets that are coming out from that one, and one of those swing sets is going to be scheduled to come to the Belmont tot lot, so that was really exciting,” Carmichael said.

She said they were watching for construction to start in the fall, and although she got little nervous as the weeks ticked by, work crews showed up this past week to install the piece of playground equipment.

Councillor touts 'positive change'

Carmichael, who was the first to test out the new swing set after the park opened mid-day Friday, said she’s grateful to the city for the playground upgrade.

“It feels so awesome to know that Sitka and their friends have put in all this work, and that it actually resulted in something,” she said.

“I feel like it would have been a good experience either way — but it's really cool that it actually had an impact.”

Coun. Katie Neustaeter was happy to hear about the new improvement at Belmont Park. In April, she said she was “thrilled” to see Porter and friends take action to petition for the swings.

“This is exactly how positive change happens in communities, and I’m so proud we have a city who hears the needs of residents from the youngest to the oldest and strives to meet them,” Neustaeter told Castanet.