Walter Giesbrecht is a coach at Garden Valley Collegiate. Over the years, he has worked with minor basketball and is an organizer within the Winkler Basketball Club. Giesbrecht is thrilled about the recent announcement of a $1.5 million contribution to the Winkler basketball and pickleball community. The funds will go towards indoor courts.

“This is a really big step for our community from a recreation perspective. There's just a buzz. And we're just thrilled for the partnership with Winkler Pickleball and with the city of Winkler.” 

Giesbrecht says that the intention is, along with various members of the pickleball community, to work on a plan to get fundraising off the ground. “This is the first step and so now all the hard work begins,” says Giesbrecht. 

"We are excited to work with the community at making something that's going to be here for a long time and impact a lot of lives and so we're excited to collaborate with the community to get this thing off the ground. 

Years back, Giesbrecht was involved in bringing a new outdoor basketball court to Winkler. 

“We began with the notion of refurbishing the basketball court that was built in 1990, and from there the City helped us both in terms of encouragement and in terms of finances. What's excited me about the indoor facility we're working on is the positive response from the Community. To me at least from a basketball perspective, this next step we're making for an indoor facility, just seems like a logical next step branching out from the outdoor courts that we did a few years back.” 

Giesbrecht admits that he gets emotional at times when he sees how well the outdoor basketball courts are being used by the community. 

“I've walked by there at night or driven by and I see the people [using it]. Life often throws you curveballs and doesn't work the way you would hope. This is one example of where it just worked out better than we could have imagined. I get kind of emotional if I let myself think about it. It just gives me great hope for what can happen when City leadership, business leadership and community leadership get together. There's no limit to what we can accomplish. I think as a community, when we dream big, we can do amazing things.”