I went by the other day to visit the old convent of the Sisters of St. Joseph, which has dominated the landscape along Monaghan Road north for over 150 years. It was almost unrecognizable on the inside, confusing me about where I slept during retreats in the '80s, and where we visited when a Sister had died. But it's humming with new life, renovation, activity and smiling faces.
In a very few years, Peterborough's best qualities of daring, generosity and hard work have come together there with remarkable results at The Mount Community Centre.
Three leaders met me for a walk and talk. It was edifying. Kate Ramsay, a local philanthropist, co-chairs the newest campaign for funds: a goal of $4 million by 2020, more than half of which has come in. Ann Farlow is with us, a Mount Community Centre board member from the earliest days, whom I remember in 2013 as making an appeal at a service at the new convent for people to make a social investment in a newly forming, non-profit group renovating the old building for housing.
It seemed somewhat like a pipe dream then, but Father Leo Coughlin stepped forward with a $5,000 loan, and within three months the group had raised $300,000. Two years later the Mount board was able to offer these investors their money back, if they wanted it, and 3 per cent interest. What a story.
Guiding me also was co-ordinator of the whole project Andi Van Koeverden, a dynamic leader who knows everyone in the building, manages a hundred volunteers and leads me in my hard hat to areas where 17 skilled local workmen are installing plumbing, doing drywall and working with wires.
I ask about the architect, and Andi tells me glowingly about Gregg Gordon, a Peterborough architect with an interest in ecological features. In earlier phases, it was Neil Campbell. I can't really imagine what they thought as they first saw the 1869 structure. Dreaming big.
Already, tenants live in 43 apartments, vulnerable people from the list of those many hundreds here in Peterborough who seek social housing.
The Mount Community Centre is, wisely, many faceted. There are offices for small businesses and professionals. I enjoy meeting up with former Fleming president Tony Tilly, who has his consulting business here, with Peter Pula of Axiom News and with Chonee Dennis, of The Dennis Group, all of whom offer service to non-profits in management and fundraising. The VON Adult daycare is there.
In the Gathering Room, sometimes used for Theatre Guild productions, I find a warm and peaceful preschool called Rowantree, led by Jessica Lindiman. This summer, an outdoor educator, Mathieu Lavoie of St. Anne School, will run a two-week "Forest School," incorporating the philosophy that 60 per cent of education time for children should be outdoors.
There is another highlight at the MCC: The Fulcrum Restaurant, where managers teach culinary skills to adults and provide catering to such places as the Silver Bean Café, the Kawartha Cardiac Clinic and Kyoto Coffee.