It was a big job for one kid.

La Ronge is a long way up. It sits on the west shore of Lac la Ronge, where the road north out of Prince Albert stops being farmland and becomes rock, jack pine and water, and the school there, Pre-Cam Community School, has been raising money for a new playground for a while now, the way a small northern school raises money for anything, through the slow generosity of people who already know each other. The fund stands at about 120,000 dollars against a target of 150,000, and the playground goes in next month.

Tyler Richards is in Grade 4 at Pre-Cam. In May he decided that his part of the 150,000 would be cans and bottles.

That is a more sensible plan in Saskatchewan than it would be in most places, because every drink container sold in the province carries a deposit, ten cents for a can or a small bottle, twenty-five for anything a litre and over, and the money is paid back in cash at the SARCAN depot when you carry the empties in, lids off, sorted by type. A garbage bag of cans is therefore worth something, provided someone is willing to collect it, rinse it, sort it and haul it. He gave himself a goal of a thousand dollars, which at ten cents a container is ten thousand cans, and started collecting.

By August, three months in, he had 700 dollars, which is a serious summer's work for a Grade 4 kid and still short. His mother, Allyson, put a post on social media asking whether anyone in town had recyclables they did not want. What came back was not a few bags. Neighbours brought them, friends brought them, people the family did not know brought them, and the pile of donations carried him past the thousand and kept going. By the time school started he had somewhere around 2,300 dollars, more than double what he had set out to raise. Nobody has counted the containers. At ten cents a can and a quarter for the big bottles it is somewhere between nine and twenty-three thousand of them, and every one of them went through his hands.

Tuesday

Pre-Cam held its welcome-back assembly on Tuesday, and at some point in it the principal, Ryan Kuppenbender, called Tyler Richards up in front of the school and told the students what he had done, that he had volunteered a great deal of his own time to make the donation possible, and that the school wanted to make sure his efforts were recognised. The students gave him a standing ovation. Derek Cornet of larongeNOW, the local news site, was in the room and wrote that the excitement could not be missed.

I saw some of the facial expressions of some of the students and their eyes were just wide open. They were just amazed, and it truly brought a tear to the eye.Allyson Richards, his mother

She said she could not be prouder, that it showed what a great heart he has, and that words could not really describe it, which is what mothers say and is also, in this case, accurate. She also said something more practical: that watching the assembly, she thought it might motivate the last little bit of money the fund still needs.

Tyler himself said he could not wait to use the new playground, and thanked everyone who had helped, and then said the one line in the whole story that is his own.

It was a big job for one kid.Tyler Richards, Grade 4

The playground is installed next month, in October, when the first snow is not far off. He will be in Grade 4 when it opens, which is about the right age for it.