After discovering the current Bonnyville Royal Canadian Legion building was irreparable, the Legion committee decided to buy the St. James Anglican Church, located at 5111-52 St. to use as their new facility.
Glen Matthews, service officer for the Bonnyville Legion, said it was eight years ago when they decided the current building needed upgrades. After years of fundraising, they received a donation from the fire department in November 2011, which included monetary and labour donations.
However, when they began tearing down the drywall for renovations this past January, Matthews said they discovered just how bad the building really was.
“The foundation is totally rotted out,” he said. “In support for the walls, there was wood rot from moisture. There's absolutely no insulation in the walls whatsoever.”
The building, which was built in the 1920s, was estimated at $600,000 to repair.
“With that, we found out that the legion wasn't worth restoring,” he said. “So we decided that we'd tear down this building. We have the two lots (so we'd) sell the lots and possibly look for a place to move that we could renovate.
“Well, after looking around we found that the church that was up for sale came within our guidelines.”
The Legion took possession of the church on March 26. Now they are looking for help in renovating the building.
Their intentions are to renovate the inside of the building, while leaving the outside as in its historical form.
“The people of Bonnyville need to know these things so that we have enough money to (renovate) the church,” said Matthews.
“We want to renovate it inside but maintain the outside at the heritage of what it is.”
Matthews said they are looking for volunteers and monetary donations to renovate the interior of the church, which was initially built in 1906.
“Anybody who's willing to contribute anything, manpower, material or anything. Tradesman who would be willing to donate time and effort and energy to assist or supervise the renovations…or monetary donations to help buy the material.”
He hopes to get started right away. The first on the list is to rewire the building and bring the bathrooms up to code. Then they'd like to get started on the hall so events can be held in the new Legion location.
“It's not going to be all done at one time but all together I'd say about $150,000 and that will be spread over the durations of the renovations,” he said.
Matthews said he started a Memorial Building Fund to raise money for renovations.
“People can donate money in memory of somebody and our intentions are that we're going to have a wall of remembrance, which would have little brass plaques with people's names in remembrance,” he said. “In that fund, I think we have about $35,000.”
Aside from that, most of their funds have gone toward purchasing the building. Matthews explained that being a Legion, 50 per cent of their funds must go toward community involvement, so while they have donated money to buy equipment in the hospital, beds in the senior's lodge and support community events and programs, they are unable to use the funds toward renovations.
