After working for a year behind the scenes on its new partnership plan, the Prescott and Russell Recreational Trail has established its first sponsorship agreement with a local organization, since becoming a not-for-profit in 2022.
“We’re announcing our first big partnership,” trail Executive Director Eric Collard said.
The three-year promotional partnership is with Hawkesbury and District General Hospital (HGH).
The partnership was made official at the trail’s annual meeting on Wednesday, May 15 in Chute-à-Blondeau.
HGH Board Vice Chair Lucie Charlebois explained the partnership will allow the hospital to use the trail as a way of promoting physical activity and healthy living.
Along the trail, HGH’s role as a local hospital and its services will be promoted.
HGH is contributing $5,000 each year, for a total of $15,000 to the trail.
2023 on the trail
The 72-kilometre trail crosses Prescott and Russell counties from the Ottawa city limits in the west to St-Eugène in the east. The trail offers a relatively flat, pleasant and accessible route for the whole family with agricultural and wooded landscapes, dotted with charming little villages across five municipalities. In summer, it is available for a bike ride, walk or run and in winter, snowmobiling, snowshoeing, or cross-country skiing.
In 2023, activities held to benefit the Prescott and Russell Recreational Trail included a country market in Bourget and fundraisers at Beau’s in Vankleek Hill, the Vankleek Hill Vineyard, and Broken Stick Brewing in Hammond. In 2023, tree planting was done at the site of the new trail pavilion in Alfred and the trail was used by the Canadian Mental Health Association for its series of Mood Walks. The trail also became part of a larger, national system last year.
“We became part of the Trans-Canada Trail in 2023,” Collard said.
“It was a lot of work,” he remarked about the process of integrating the trail into the national network, the largest of its kind in the world.
A successful spring cleanup along parts of the trail in 2024 received so much interest from volunteers that another cleanup will be held this fall.
The trail also has e-bike rentals available at three locations; Beau’s in Vankleek Hill, Café-sur-la-Rive in Plantagenet, and Mike Dean grocery in Bourget.
Recently, improvements have been made to the trail surface in the St-Eugène area. Municipalities nearby in Québec are also in the process of completing a 14-kilometre connector trail which will link the Prescott and Russell trail at the provincial boundary to Rigaud in Québec.
The trail organization has also awarded its 2023 Serge Lalonde Award to volunteer Brigitte Stewart of Hammond. In 2020 as an activity to pass the time during the most difficult days of COVID-19 restrictions she began planting and maintaining flowers around the trail pavilion in Hammond.
“The Hammond pavilion is very busy,” Stewart said.
