New community centre opens in the South Wellington area
The building will be operated in collaboration by the South Wellington and Area Community Association and the Regional District of Nanaimo. (Lauryn Mackenzie / CHLY 101.7FM)
New life is being brought to an old school that had been sitting empty for over ten years.
The former South Wellington School, now opened as the South Wellington Community Centre, will offer recreation programming, events, and a place to connect for everyone in Electoral Area A.
In 2022, the Regional District of Nanaimo (RDN) and School District 68 entered into a 25-year lease for the former school and the grounds around it, to convert the building into a community centre and use the outside space as a community park.
The building will be operated in collaboration by the South Wellington and Area Community Association and the Regional District of Nanaimo. The community association will run the day-to-day operations and the facility bookings, while the regional district will oversee recreational programs.
A ribbon cutting ceremony was held on Wednesday August 19th, officially opening the community centre.
Jessica Stanley, director of Electoral Area A which includes South Wellington, spoke at the event about how excited she is to see the centre finally open after years of work.
“I do want to honour that we have worked years for this moment, and I have to say it's so nice to be able to say we're gathered here today because that has always been what this project is about,” Stanley said. “It's about creating a space to come together as a community to gather, connect, and play.”
She said when the school was set to close in 2013, the community association banded together to make sure the building could still be used as a space for community connection.
“They have big plans, and they welcome ideas on how to contribute to support our community and create a space for the benefit for all of Area A and beyond,” Stanley said. “I'm excited to continue to come here and see us create community through connection for years to come.”
Susan Toth, a member of the South Wellington and Area Community Association remembers when her kids went to school at the former South Wellington School.
She explained how the community association formed 20 years ago just so they could run events and programming at the school allowing the community to connect in a shared space.
“We used to run programs at that time; dance lessons, cooking classes, ball games, teaching kids to play ball, floor hockey,” Toth said. “So we were already doing recreation, just that we didn't have funds to kind of keep it on a bigger scale.”
The old school sign. (Lauryn Mackenzie / CHLY 101.7FM)
While her kids have now grown up, she said she saw how important the school was as a place for youth and the rest of the community to meet and connect.
So when she heard the former school was up for demolition she knew the building needed to be saved for the community.
“I started writing letters to the school trustees, and then they were the ones that changed their mind and said that the school district needed to come to the community and do a consult to see whether or not they could save the building for a community centre,” she said. “Once we got that moving, then it was getting the collaboration of the school district and the RDN to work together. Once we got them on board, then it just kind of perpetuated from there.”
Toth said now that the school has shut down, having this community centre is more important than ever.
“It left a real hole in the community. Kids are being bused to three different schools. There's no connection for new families,” she said. “So with this, we're hoping that we could provide affordable programmes and that people will come here, whether they're older, younger, middle-aged. We can provide programmes, and then they can get to know each other. The community will start getting closer together again.”
While the RDN will be running most of the programs out of the building, Toth said the association will soon also be providing programming and events.
She said they are currently taking ideas from the community for what they should run.
“We're open to all kinds of ideas. We want to get a before and after school care, hopefully, or a daycare, as an anchor tenant, but we're going to run whatever we can, whatever people want,” she said. “It's like a new business. So we have to learn as we go, and hopefully we'll get that figured out quickly.”
Toth said while the road to Wednesday’s ribbon cutting was long, it was because of the community coming together that this was even possible.
“It has been a collaboration amongst many people, but it's basically the community because if the community didn't stand behind our vision, we wouldn't have been able to pitch it and make it work,” she said. “So, the community really needs to be proud of what they did too.”
She said this new community centre is not just for the people in South Wellington but all the surrounding communities and future generations to come.
“That was our goal all the time because people that are in Nanaimo River, Chase River, Cassidy Extension, they don't have anything, [and now] they'll have a space to come,” she said. “Cedar, Yellow Point–it's here for everyone to use.”
The $4.4 million cost to renovate and upgrade the building was funded by the federal government, provincial government, and RDN reserve funds.
According to the regional district, ongoing operational costs will be funded through the Electoral Area A Recreation and Culture Service.
Funding Note: This story was produced with funding support from the Local Journalism Initiative, administered by the Community Radio Fund of Canada.
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