At Lakes District Maintenance, we believe in being good neighbours and supporting the communities where we work, live and adventure. The charities and organizations we support are as vast as the highways and bridges we maintain. By giving back, we demonstrate our passion for improving our service areas and strengthening connections in and among the communities. Our team’s commitment to the communities extends beyond Lakes District Maintenance, and you will find our employees helping, volunteering, or assisting with local organizations in their spare time.
Maintaining and strengthening the
communities where we live and work
Ride Burns
Burns Lake is well known in the mountain biking community, and Ride Burns is the local organization that supports and enhances this community. Ride Burns is responsible for organizing hard-working trail crews and maintaining the extensive trail networks designed by world-renowned experts.
Annually, we support Ride Burns through donations for races and events like the Big Pig Mountain Biking Festival and the Babes In Balance mountain biking and yoga retreat for women. We also support Ride Burns’ Bike Camp, where local kids ages five – 12 can learn from local certified coaches, promoting physical activity and mountain bike safety.
Monetary donations are not the only way we help Ride Burns. We lend our skills and services to build and maintain trails, grade, and plow the access road to Boer Mountain and assist with dust control in the spring.
Omineca Ski Club
The Omineca Ski Club has served Burns Lake and surrounding areas for close to a century. Since 1927, the ski club has attracted cross-country skiers of varying levels from British Columbia with impressive trails and top facilities.
The Omineca Ski Club is home to a world-class biathlon range, where past and current Olympians and national champions have trained. The ski club also offers children’s ski development programs, where children of all ages can come together and develop their cross-country skills.
Annually, Lakes District Maintenance volunteers its team and equipment to help maintain the trails and roads. Each fall, Lakes District Maintenance lends its brushing machine to the club to clear the ski trails of summer growth. Throughout the year, the team helps with grading and plowing the main road to Omineca Ski Club.
Lakes District Secondary School
Lakes District Secondary School has served students in Burns Lake and the surrounding Bulkley-Nechako Regional District since 1934. In 2003, Lakes District Secondary School moved into its new and modern high school, which caters to more than 350 high school students.
At Lakes District Maintenance, we believe in supporting and strengthening our future workforce, and we can demonstrate this commitment through our work with Lakes District Secondary School. Annually, we donate two scholarships to Lakes District Secondary School students, one for students pursuing a career in the trades and one for students pursuing a professional career.
We also support Lakes District Secondary School’s students with their Project Trails. Project Trails is an initiative where students spend two to three days building or maintaining local walking and biking trails. We donate our equipment, materials, and operators to help the students and the program. Additionally, we assist the mountain biking, skiing, and snowboarding, volleyball, and basketball teams through monetary donations.
Lakes Animal Friendship
Lakes Animal Friendship is a local non-profit that aims to improve the lives of animals in Burns Lake and the surrounding area. Lakes Animal Friendship focuses on Humane Education for children and community members, and it provides spay/neuter programs, shelters, and food to animals in need.
At Lakes District Maintenance, we believe in helping all community members, furry, four-legged friends included. We also believe in the power of early education and empowerment to create a knowledgeable, compassionate community. When we learned about the Humane Education program at Lakes Animal Friendship, we knew this was a community initiative we wanted to support.
Our donation to Lakes Animal Friendship directly supported the distribution of educational activity books to elementary schools in central BC. The activity books teach children about caring for household pets, staying safe around cats and dogs, and being compassionate, responsible community members.
Rotary Club of Burns Lake
The Rotary Club of Burns Lake focuses on supporting its community and giving back to those in need. The Rotary Club of Burns Lake works to provide service to others, promoting high ethical standards, and advancing world understanding, goodwill and peace through its endeavours and community members.
One of the ways the Rotary Club of Burns Lake achieves this is through its student exchanges, sending local students on exchange and hosting students looking to discover Burns Lake. During their exchanges to Burns Lake, students take the Tweedsmuir Trek. An exciting, once-in-a-lifetime adventure in Tweedsmuir Park, one of Canada’s last wilderness reserves, which is only accessible by water and air.
Each year, the Rotary Club of Burns Lake hosts an auction with items from local vendors and organizations to raise funds for its upcoming community projects. Lakes District Maintenance has been a proud supporter of the annual auction since 2004.
Lakes District Maintenance also supports the Rotary Club of Burns Lake through an annual donation of equipment and labour to maintain the Rotary Club’s Rod Reid Trail, a local walking trail that encompasses the Loch Lomond wetlands.