Photo: RISE

FILE- Fencing has gone up around Knowles Heritage Park, as long-held plans for the memorial dedicated to victims of a 2021 Kelowna crane collapse start taking shape.

Fencing has gone up around Knowles Heritage Park, as long-held plans for the memorial dedicated to victims of a 2021 Kelowna crane collapse start taking shape.

“We finally found a funding source,” Kelly Hutchinson, secretary treasurer of the RISE Memorial Foundation, said Monday explaining that's behind the noticeable change around the Bernard Avenue park.

Hutchinson said that the identity of the funder will be made known in the weeks ahead, but for the time being it’s being withheld.

Dollars falling into place have come as a significant relief.

It was only in January when the foundation learned that the province denied $150,000 in grant funding for the project and the whole timeline was thrown off. Hutchinson said there were some stressful days as those closest to the project worked to line up new funding sources but now that they have, he can comfortably share the timeline.

With the fencing up, he said demolition and excavation work will start in the days ahead.

“They'll do some site grading and work to try to preserve some of the existing vegetation,” he said. “There's really not much in there right now, but there are little things that we don't want to don't want to have harmed or in any way.”

In April a legacy tree, the centre point of the memorial, will be installed. Then there will be some concrete prep around the tree completed.

In May there will be paving stones and things of that sort installed, and by June plant life will start to take root.

All of it will set the stage for the July unveiling, which will coincide with the fourth anniversary of the tragedy and give people a place to mourn the loss of five lives.

“This should have never happened,” Hutchinson said. “So we want a place to remember the men who died, but also highlight the importance of worker safety.”

Five men died July 12, 2021, including crane workers Jared Cook, Cailen Vilness, brothers Patrick and Eric Stemmer and Brad Zawislak, who was working in an adjacent office.

Vilness’s mother, Danielle Pritchett, said she’s glad that a place to memorialize her son and the other men who died that day will be set up.

“It’s amazing,” she said, adding that it will help families involved in what’s considered one of the most devastating workplace accidents in the city to have a place to mourn.

Hutchinson agrees.

“There was no real space to really allow people to grieve and come together,” he said, noting the memorial garden will be for everyone who’s been touched by workplace tragedy.

One of Hutchinson’s other roles is union representative with the Labour Council in Kelowna. It doesn’t work with the construction industry but he was struck by the “horrific” nature of the crane collapse and he and others thought it was important to step up and do something for those affected.

He said he’s not alone in that. This weekend he started writing a list of people who had reached out to him in some way over the last three years, to try and help move the project along.

He got to 150 lines, got tired and took a break, thought he will get back to it shortly.

“Kelowna is different — we responded in a much closer way, because we're still small town,” he said. “There were all these gestures and then when it comes to the actual project … it's a million dollar park and we're building it for basically $300,000 thanks to all the donations.”