Laurentian Ski Hill received a pleasant surprise this week when Degagne & Lefebvre Building Group arrived in a truck full of a dozen donated wooden benches.
Mike King, the new general manager at Laurentian Ski Hill was pleasantly surprised.
"They are great guys wanting to give back to the community," said King.
"They got a hold of us and offered to do it for us. They also offered to touch up some of the older benches that we still have that are a little wobbly so they are going to make sure they are safe as well."
Francis Lefebvre, one of the co-owners of the new local business felt it was the right thing to do.
"When you are in a position to give back to your community, it is almost like an obligation," explained Lefebvre.
"I was made aware that due to COVID-19, the ski hill may be encountering some hardships moving people along and keeping people comfortable, so we figured we would make a few benches and that was my last Sunday. Basically what I did was I hunkered down in my garage and I built 12 benches for the ski hill. Twelve is a good start and we will see where that takes us for sure."
King says the new benches will be ideal this year due to much lower seating capacity levels allowed within the chalet at this time.
"Our capacity inside the chalet is considerably limited compared to what it had been in the past so we are looking at putting together some warming stations in outside areas and we are looking at getting some heaters," King explained.
"We have a covered awning in the upper chalet that we are going to look at putting some outdoor heaters in and we wanted to have some nice benches for people to sit. If we have sufficient heat from those heaters we can have them put their gear on outdoors."
While the Ski Hill has not released an opening date yet, King says the early season passes sales have been promising.
"Skiing outdoors is naturally conducive to social distancing - even just the length of the skis and poles keeping people apart from one another," said King.
"It is a good way to get healthy, both mentally and physically and we are getting so much interest. We also have kids who cannot compete in their sport of choice this winter so they may be looking for alternatives and we have Snowbirders who are not going away this winter so they might be looking for things to do so we are pretty excited about it."
