KAWARTHA LAKES-When Greg Arkwright and Shakir Rehmatullah met by chance neither had any idea it would lead to screams of delight and happy smiling faces of local school children.
Arkwright is the Principal of Fenelon Township Public School in Cameron. He says he took a drive one day to show a friend where a new housing development was going up just down the road from the school. Shakir Rehmatullah, President of Flato Developments, and one of his workers were coming out of the property and Arkwright introduced himself as the Principal of the school in Cameron. Flato has two local developments underway in Kawartha Lakes, one in Lindsay and the other in Cameron.
The two men crossed paths on a few other occasions throughout last summer and fall.
Arkwright says when the School Council told him they needed to do something for the playground in the Kindergarten/Grade 1 yard he began looking into the cost.
“The School Board does the 50/50 on big projects like this which is fantastic, but still for a small school like us to be able to do anything was a tall order,” Arkwright told Kawartha 411 News. “The School Council is amazing and we put together a very strategic fundraising plan, but it would likely take us a couple of years of fundraising to reach our goal. Playground structures are expensive!”
After getting three quotes they knew they were looking at roughly $20,000 for the school portion of the cost. That’s when the idea came to Arkwright to put in a proposal for support with Rehmatullah.
On Wednesday Rehmatullah and Flato Developments presented the school with a cheque for the full $20,000.
