See attached CBC news article and Radio interview describing the project.
A couple years ago we started a good deed project in my home town of Chapleau, in northern Ontario. We did a deal with Anglican diocese to buy their church building, which was one of the last historic buildings left standing in Chapleau but in serious disrepair. The congregation has shrunk to very small numbers such that they could not afford to heat the building any longer, let alone the repairs needed to preserve the building from demolition.
We have converted the building into the Chapleau Hub, a community hub to spur and support local entrepreneurs, that now hosts a licensed restaurant in the lower level with a wood fired pizza oven, and shared use on the main floor with yoga lessons, fitness programs, children and youth programming, women’s shelter meetings, weekly movie nights, and most importantly we have kept the church congregation full use on Sundays and special events, so the place of worship has been retained even though now privatized with multiple shared uses.
