A COVID-19 Heroes and Memorial Garden could soon be wrapped within the endless green and soft breezes of Barrie’s Sunnidale Park.
The Rotary Club of Barrie’s plans for "The Garden," which are more than two years in the making, are for an immersive, symbolic and reflective memorial and public space to recognize the broader impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the community without any specific references to individuals, timelines or events.
“It’s there for those people that struggled, had hard times, lost people,” said Deb DeCaire, the club’s past-president, from 2020 to 2021. “Some people had good experiences through COVID, they re-connected with family, they had a chance to get priorities changed and so it was a real time for reflection and this garden is very much for that reflection, that thought, that remembrance.”
Barrie councillors, sitting as general committee, will consider approving the project at tonight's meeting.
There would be trees, shrubs, benches, a walkway, and a partially hidden cove in The Garden, with stones for children to sit upon, for groups such as Boy Scouts and Brownies, for conversations.
DeCaire said it would be designed and landscaped so the wind will make soft sounds coming through the different leaves.
She also said the idea dates back to a time when the pandemic was only about three months old.
“Having the WHO (World Health Organization) say that the world is in a pandemic, that’s a pretty remarkable thing that we’re living through,” DeCaire said. “This is history we’re living through and we felt there is so much going on and people can’t connect.
“Our front-line staff … they did so much and we can’t forget that," she added.
The club hopes to begin construction later this month or early June, with completion scheduled for next September.
Its proposed location is the demolished Sunnidale Park playground site, which was reconstructed and relocated in 2015 adjacent to the Dorian Parker Centre.
The club has received grant funding of $54,175 in 2022 from Community Foundations of Canada, which will cover about half the construction cost, DeCaire said. The other half will come from the Rotary Club of Barrie and private donors.
More than two years ago, in April 2021, the last council approved a motion saying that, in order to properly recognize the victims of COVID-19, all requests or recommendations for memorials be referred to the city clerk to maintain the list until the COVID-19 pandemic is declared over. At that time, the city clerk would review the requests with the municipal naming working group, or the appropriate departments for evaluation and response through a report back to general committee.
That same month, Rotarians presented their proposal to the city building committee to create a COVID-19 pandemic heroes garden within Sunnidale Park.
On May 5, 2023, the WHO downgraded the COVID pandemic, saying it was no longer a global emergency, although the WHO said the pandemic has not come to an end.
While The Garden is not specifically noted within the council-approved Sunnidale Park master plan, this project does support the strategic directions and goals of the master plan, by providing a new passive recreational opportunity and rehabilitating an abandoned area of the park for free public enjoyment and reflection.
The motion being considered by councillors tonight is that Rotarians finance and construct The Garden in Sunnidale Park, that it would become city property, that regular maintenance be done by the parks and forestry operations branch and that $3,500 be included in its 2024 operating budget to offset the increased annual expenditures related to the cost of utilities and maintenance.
It could be considered for final approval by city council at its May 17 meeting.
