Three cheers for a trail

By Jennifer Bowman
Courtesy of the Rural Hastings Advocate

(Belleville, Jan. 26, 2012) Township of Tyendinaga Reeve Rick Phillips holds the advertisement for the Molson Coors Community Cheer project. The flyer encourages people to vote for the Eastern Ontario Trails Alliance project that would join the Township of Tyendinaga to Tweed with a 42 kilometre trail. Photo by Jennifer Bowman

Tweed and the Township of Tyendinaga are hoping they’ll be cheered into some funding for a trail that would connect their rec centres.

The two communities applied for funding through the Molson Coors Community Project for a 42-kilometre trail that would link the Township of Tyendinaga to Tweed.

The project is competing against 64 other communities across Canada for the funding, most of them with urban populations.

They need 225 cheers to qualify for the funding with a goal of reaching 1,000. After that the 20 funding recipients will be chosen by certain criteria which includes the number of cheers they receive.

The multi-use trail could be used for anything from biking and cross-country skiing to horseback riding and ATVing. It would link the Township of Tyendinaga with the rest of the trails in the Eastern Ontario Trails Alliance.

Rick Phillips, reeve of Tyendinaga Township, said they’ve been talking about a trail for at least five years.

“The importance of this trail for the Township of Tyendinaga is to give our residents another opportunity to get out and exercise,” said Phillips.

The Township of Tyendinaga doesn’t have any trails, he said.

Joey Walsh, economic development officer for Tweed, said the trail would give Tweed direct access through trails to the 401.

The two communities are partnering with the Eastern Ontario Trails Alliance to develop the trail. They applied for $50,000 in funding.

At this point, much of the expense is the signage, said Walsh.

All the trails are there and it’s all public property, he said. The money will go into safety signage, some gravel, culverts in different places, and general upkeep.

How much they can do depends on how much they receive.

There won’t be any taxpayer money involved, said Walsh.

Eventually, they’d like to add routes through Marlbank and Lonsdale, he said.

To cheer the project, go to the following site and follow the instructions below before February.

Steps to CHEER:

Find our project (about 3/4 of the way down the page) at
www.ourcommunitycheer.com Click on Insider Login/Signup Sign up by entering
Login Information and answering a few questions BELOW the sign in button
(takes about 1 min)! Then click register.
Once you have registered to become a Molson insider, you will see the option
to CHEER.