Yellowhead Community Services and District of Clearwater are investing about $650,000 of their own and their partners’ money into converting the former Dutch Lake Elementary School into a community center.
That’s according to figures provided by Jack Keough, YCS executive director, and Leslie Groulx, District of Clearwater chief administrative officer.
“The benefits to the community will be enormous and 22,000sq. ft of empty space will have been re-invented to meet broader community interests and needs,” said Keough.
According to Keough, more than two years have been spent in the development, from identifying the investors, raising the capital, working with architect and engineers, identifying contractors and sub-contractors, working with suppliers and managing the progress of the project all on a tight, limited budget.
All of the functions of the existing Community Resource Center and its tenants will be relocated to Dutch Lake within the YCS portion of the building. The YCS services will include literacy programs; family and children’s activities; trusted third party service; administration support to Thompson Rivers University and the Chamber of Commerce; Business Center component; inter-agency coordination, the Food Security Initiative as well as a few others.
Tenants will be the Thompson-Nicola Regional District services coordinator for Wells Gray Country (Area A) and Thompson Headwaters (Area B); North Thompson Community Forest; Chamber of Commerce; and Tourism Wells Grey.
There will be an office for guests such as the MLA and MP that will be available for Community Futures as well. These offices will be grouped in an ‘economic incubator’, which is five offices and a meeting room with audio-visual capability.
North Thompson Arts Council will operate an art gallery. Attached to the gallery will be a workshop area for member groups of the council. The council will enlist support from its members to host other activities, such as theatre and music productions.
TRU will operate its classes and programs out of the Dutch Lake community center with two classrooms for the university’s priority use. These classrooms will be available for other community groups and activities as well. A computer lab will be part of the TRU functions.
There will be a dedicated seniors’ area while youth programs will use the gym and a multi-purpose room. The multi-purpose room is approximately 1,700 sq. ft and will be used for a variety of activities, gatherings and events. Both the multi-purpose room and gym are co-managed by YCS and the District of Clearwater.
“Although it will be too late for this season, in future we will be organizing a robust summer program using the field area to host open mike and music events, as were previously hosted at the Flour Meadow Bakery,” Keough said.
YCS will be managing the playschool this upcoming September. However, it will need to do some renovations to the existing building adjacent to the former school.
Future plans include the development of a licensed kitchen.
“As we get situated in the building we will be able to better evaluate the uses but overall we are very excited about the possibilities for this new community center and very excited to be doing this project in partnership with the DoC for the betterment of the community,” the YCS executive director said.
Contributions to the renovation project coming through YCS include: Ministry of Social Development (Jobs Creation Program) – $125,000; Ministry of Social Development (Work BC) – $95,000; BC Gaming Branch – $50,000; Southern Interior Development Initiative Trust – $50,000; anonymous donor – $50,000; Yellowhead Community Services Society $30,000 (plus $50,000 in-kind); North Thompson Community Forest – $19,000; United Way Community Fund – $10,000; Wadlegger Logging and Construction – lumber donation, and Canfor – lumber donation
As outlined in last week’s issue, YCS and TRU will occupy the north wing of the renovated school, while District of Clearwater will take up most of the east wing.
The District has put $218,000 into the project, of which $50,000 came from Wells Gray Community Forest Grant; $92,000 from Western Diversification (federal); and $76,000 from the District itself.
The new community center is expected to open sometime later this year.
