From a thick folder of documents, Arlene Patterson pulls out a single page – the results of a survey of 1,700 households, with 201 responses, in Bright’s Grove some 20 years ago.
The first question asks: “Would you like a community center in Bright’s Grove?”
Nearly four in five at the time answered yes.
“Nothing much has changed; the needs out there haven’t changed,” said Patterson, once the co-chair of the Bright’s Grove Community Action Group, later renamed Bright’s Grove Community Center Inc.
“You ask anybody in Bright’s Grove, have they ever been to an event at their community center … they’ll say ‘Where is the community centre?’” she said.
Patterson and Richard Platt are two of the once 12-member former group that spent about a decade trying to garner support but found themselves “stonewalled” by people in positions of power, and unable to create a groundswell amid competing ideas, including a proposed addition to Bright’s Grove public school in Wildwood Park.
The group, which raised money through euchre tournaments dating back to 1994, is again backing the new Bright’s Grove Community Hub idea, and has offered to gift what remains of that money towards the project, Patterson said..
“It’s not, I wouldn’t say, significant, but it may help them in some way or another,” she said about the funds, declining to specify the amount.
“And we have an obligation to make sure those monies go to something that was still within the realm of what we were trying to do,” she said.
Community members more recently have proposed expanding Faethorne House that’s currently home to the community library and a volunteer art gallery into a larger community hub.
Detailed design work is still needed, but city estimates are $5 million to $8 million for the proposed 650-square-metre expansion to address space and accessibility issues.
City council is expected to weigh next week whether to invest an estimated $240,000 more for detailed design work, adding to the $120,000 put towards the project so far.
About $40,000 in concept plan and topographical survey work has been completed, city officials have said.
The history of Bright’s Grove Community Center Inc. was a revelation for Kirsten Kilner Holmes, one of the hub project volunteer committee chairs.
Patterson and Platt recently approached her, she said, “in the hope that we can carry on the torch and get this (hub) project going.”
She said she was honored to learn about the predecessor group and proud to carry on its efforts.
Having communal space helps anchor a community, Patterson said, adding people elsewhere in Sarnia like to talk up Bright’s Grove.
“Well, how about we start meeting some of the needs of the community that’s out there?” she asked.