A couple of weeks ago Rachel Horwood of Injilinji Community Kindergarten accepted a grant from Mount Isa City Mayor Joyce McCulloch for $5000 out of Round 2 of the council’s community grants program.

The kindy in Thompson Rd near Healy State School attracts youngsters mostly aged from three to five and it wants to put a big more nature into its play yard, Ms Horwood said.

“We’ve got a massive yard out the back there and because we had no rain for a while a lot of the grass died off and we ended up with a patch of dirt so we thought of different ways to take away that dirt,” Ms Horwood said.

Ms Horwood said the idea they came up with was a children's outdoor play area with an upgraded sand pit and a climbing structure around an existing tree.

“The kids love climbing and playing with the tree,” she said.

Ms Horwood said they had explored many avenues of funding before applying to the council as part of its community grants assistance program and she was impressed how quickly it was approved.

“It has only taken a month,” she said.

“We applied for just over six thousand and we got the grant for five.”

Ms Horwood said that funding win meant the project would only need a small outlay from the Injilinji Community Kindergarten to complete it.

“We are applying for other grants because we’ve still got many other projects we’d like to get to,” she said.

Mayor Joyce McCulloch congratulated Injilinji Community Kindergarten on the grant and encouraged community groups within the Mount Isa City Council area with innovative and community-minded projects to apply for future rounds.

The Mount Isa Community Grants Program is offered in two rounds annually:

Round One February 1 to February 29

Round Two  August 1 to August 30.

Applications must be lodged with Council by 4:30pm on the closing date of each round.

Guidelines for the grants program are available on the council’s website.