{"id":7540,"date":"2024-06-29T07:39:35","date_gmt":"2024-06-29T10:39:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/?p=7540"},"modified":"2024-06-29T07:39:35","modified_gmt":"2024-06-29T10:39:35","slug":"small-community-big-impact-seaside-centre-celebrates-success-after-closure-close-call","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/2024\/06\/29\/small-community-big-impact-seaside-centre-celebrates-success-after-closure-close-call\/","title":{"rendered":"Small community, big impact: Seaside Centre celebrates success after closure close call"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Kristopher Snarby, president of the Seaside Centre in Beach Meadows, says volunteers and the community have helped revitalize the community centre. (Rick Conrad)<\/p><\/div>\n

Volunteers in the Beach Meadows area have revitalized their local community centre, bringing it back from the brink just two and a half years ago.<\/span><\/p>\n

When a new board of directors took over the Seaside Centre in Beach Meadows in November 2021, many in the community feared it would close.<\/span><\/p>\n

But in the time since, the centre has reclaimed its integral place in the community.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Kristopher Snarby is president of the Seaside Centre. He was one of those new board members.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe came into a situation where people were tired and they just couldn’t keep going with the way things were. And we had a group of energetic people step in. The community made it clear they wanted to keep the building. We had a huge turnout at that meeting. It was evident from that that people wanted to make sure that we kept this facility in the community.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Over the past couple of years, board members and other volunteers have raised thousands of dollars to renovate the centre. It\u2019s now holding more regular community events and even has a couple of regular tenants renting space to help pay the bills.<\/span><\/p>\n

They have installed new insulation and heat pumps throughout the facility to make it more energy efficient. And they plan this year to install a new metal roof and metal siding to help it withstand the harsher weather conditions on the coast.<\/span><\/p>\n

They also invested $80,000 in a new generator to make the building a comfort centre during periods like hurricanes or power outages.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThese projects are huge capital projects that in theory should take a long time to achieve and we\u2019ve done a lot in the short term. \u2026 That\u2019s almost $300,000 in capital improvements to the centre in two or three years. So it\u2019s been busy and we\u2019re investing in the centre to ensure it keeps on going for a long time and it\u2019s really positive.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The centre held its annual general meeting this week, where the board highlighted some of the successes of the past year. The facility recorded a $28,842 surplus last year.<\/span><\/p>\n

Snarby says the Seaside Centre wouldn\u2019t have been able to do it without its group of about 100 volunteers and the community\u2019s support. More than half of its revenue comes from fundraising and individual donations.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had huge amounts of support both in terms of volunteer hours but also donations. We\u2019ve gotten donations anywhere from $20 to $1,000 or $5,000. So we’ve had big donations, small donations. It all goes into the pot to make that happen. Without that, none of this would have been achievable. All of our grants have required 20 to 25 per cent contribution from the community. Every event we\u2019ve had people are super generous with donations and coming out to support the centre.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe community support it\u2019s allowing to push through and really get this done.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He said after the work on the exterior of the building this year, the next long-term project may be to update their kitchen facilities.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then also just continuing to put on events and to be a place where people can come and gather. We have weekly groups that get together for yoga, for crafting, quilting. We’d like to expand that into some other weekly groups that attend here and just have more events for the community.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Snarby says they\u2019re always looking for more volunteers or for people to put on more events at the centre. You can find more information at their website at seasidecentre.ca<\/a> or by joining their Facebook group<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Email: rickconradqccr@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Listen to the audio version of this story below<\/p>\nhttps:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/seasidecentreagmjun2824.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Volunteers in the Beach Meadows area have revitalized their local community centre, bringing it back from the brink just two and a half years ago. When a new board of directors took over the Seaside Centre in Beach Meadows in November 2021, many in the community feared it would close. But in the time since, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,5],"tags":[2130,234,2421,949,185,188,1991,49,232],"class_list":["post-7540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community-news","category-news-posts","tag-annual-general-meeting","tag-beach-meadows","tag-community-centre","tag-donations","tag-fundraising","tag-kristopher-snarby","tag-non-profit","tag-queens-county","tag-seaside-centre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7540"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7543,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7540\/revisions\/7543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}