Church welcomes change

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 04/10/2017 (3141 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Years in the making, the North Kildonan United Church is now able to welcome more of the community.

On Sept. 30, the church held a ribbon cutting for its new accessible entry and automated lift.

“Our mission is to be an accepting Christian community, and I understand that to include the concept of ‘welcome,’” said Rev. Marc Whitehead. “For a long time, we’ve been aware that the building was preventing that possibility. It’s hard to include people when they can’t use the facility.”

North Kildonan United Church, located at 174 Pentland St., first opened its doors in 1959, with an addition of the upper space in the early 1970s. Over time, the congregation began to find the foyer cramped. Church staff lacked office space. Without a lift, those with mobility issues found it difficult or impossible to climb the stairs.

“This is a community place,” Whitehead said. “We’ve been frustrated by the limitations of the building to meet our needs and also the needs of the community. Because the building was hard to get into, some people couldn’t participate. Now they can.”

After years of discussion, the ball finally got rolling in October 2015, with the congregation giving the go-ahead to draw up plans and raise funds for a major renovation to improve accessibility and create more space for the growing church.

“Very important to open that space up,” Clayton Gording, chair of NKUC’s major capital projects committee, told The Herald. “We added about 30 per cent to that area. It’s not huge but it opened it up quite nicely. We’ve opened it up now so it’s going to be a far more user friendly facility than it ever was.”

Along with the lift and improved entrance, NKUC doubled its office space and added more washrooms.

“Our church secretary never really had a desk before,” Gording said. “Her office was so small she just had a narrow shelf with a computer on it.”

The $478,000 project was funded by the congregation, government grants, and major gifts and contributions from corporate and private donors. The federal government kicked in $50,000 by way of the Enabling Accessibility program, while the province contributed $32,500 from the Community Places program. The City of Winnipeg added $37,500 in community incentive grants.

To celebate the improvements, NKUC threw a part on Sept. 30.

“We arranged for some entertainment for the day, because it’s fairly dull just watching people cut a ribbon,” explained Del Sexsmith, a member of the church who organized the event and acted as emcee. “It was an uplifting event.”

Facebook.com/TheHeraldWPG
Twitter: @heraldWPG