The Christopher Lake Legion is kicking off a Restoration Campaign to refurbish their Legion Hall.
The campaign officially began on Saturday with a Spring Supper at in Christopher Lake. Restoration Committee Chair Dennis Richardson said they want to improve the Legion, which is well used by the community and Lakeland district.
“The Restoration Committee decided and has been empowered to renovate and upgrade our hall,” Richardson explained.
Legion volunteers built the Hall in 1957, Richardson said, and it’s been an important gathering place in the community since then. However, repairs are needed to keep it usable.
“As everybody knows, things do age and need to be continually upgraded,” Richardson said.
“The thing is that community halls across the province, they’re use for everything from weddings to funerals, (to), any large function here in the community, because the hall seats around 200.”
He said if anything is happening in the three lakes area, (Emma, Christopher and Anglin, which make up the Lakeland District) the Hall is a popular choice to host it.
“The hall is available to any organization,” he explained. “It’s used (by everyone) from community choral groups to the AA group. Even in the wintertime, families are renting the hall for kids to have birthday parties so they don’t have to be out playing in the snowbanks.”
The restoration campaign has two parts according to Richardson. The first phase is to reinforce the basement where the furnaces are located.
“When the folks built the building in 1957 they had a basement, which is practical, and that’s where the furnace room is,” he explained. “But over the years, that part wasn’t really reinforced. We’ve had an engineering report that’s recommending that we make some big improvements to the structural part of our basement, and when you do anything these days, that means bringing it up to code.”
The other part after the reinforcement involves replacing the furnaces.
“You have to bring things up to fireproofing,” Richardson explained. “Code these days is important because that actually will make our building structurally sound and really improve the integrity of it for a longer term.”
The second phase involves upgrading the kitchen, which has not been changed since the building was built.
“Once you do that part, the bigger part is electrical,” Richardson said. “We want to make sure we eliminate any kind of risk on the electrical part. That can be a big threat to older buildings.”
Richardson added that the committee is being practical.
“To build this kind of building would cost $700,000, $800,000,” he said. “We believe that we’re better off to restore, upgrade, and keep the building here for the community to keep using.”
The Spring Supper was a chance to let everyone know about the plans for refurbishing the Hall.
“It is the kick-off,” Richardson said. “We’re letting people in the community know that their building that they’ve used all these years needs a little bit of attention. The Legion is going to be just basically asking people in the community, what can you do to help us out.”
The kick-off supper featured roast beef and chicken, salads, perogies and dessert and was well attended by people in the area.
Richardson said the campaign has already received grants from the province and has approached surrounding areas as well for donations.
“We’re going to be approaching the RM, (the District of) Lakeland—they have already approved $25,000 for us—and then we’re going to (the) RM of Paddockwood, which surrounds the area, and then of course, the Village of Christopher Lake,” Richardson said.
Richardson said that because of the vast area the Hall serves they wanted to reach out to as many people as possible. Richardson said that Chistopher Lake doubles in size in the summer with the lake crowd and seasonally it can be used for garage sales and other functions.
“Those folks are known to be contributors to the community so we’re going to be going in and approaching those folks as well,” Richardson said.
“We’ve got to get the kitchen stabilized. That’s $160,000, and phase two is going to be $140,000 so our total was $300,000.”
Richardson said the campaign is trying to be realistic as far as a fundraising timeline.
“Within the year, we hope to be at somewhere close to the $300,000,” Richardson said.
michael.oleksyn@paherald.sk.ca
