Pickering Museum Village Foundation - Big Cheque presentation

Good evening Gentlemen and Visitors:

The Pickering Museum Village Foundation is pleased tonight to be making this cheque presentation to Pickering City Council. We have a partnership arrangement with the City to support the continued development of the Pickering Museum Village and it is a great pleasure to have this chance to illustrate it to the public.

The Foundation has been in existence since 1997 and is proud of its contribution to the museum. We partnered with the city on the restoration of the Puterbaugh Schoolhouse and have carried out a number of other projects on our own including the restoration of the 1850s Bible Chapel. We have made it a point to ensure that our contributions make things happen that the City otherwise would have been unable to finance. In other words we are not here to reduce taxes, but rather to enhance the gem of heritage culture in Durham Region.

The $250,000 we are donating tonight is our contribution to the Redman House Program Centre, officially opened a week ago. As you are aware this is part of the Brougham Central Hotel Restoration Project. On the restoration of the hotel we will be looking for a compensating $250,000 from the City with the Foundation picking up the balance, probably in the area of a half million dollars. I won’t address the details of that here tonight but needless to say it all illustrates the progressive partnership we have together.

I would just like to say that these funds we raise for these projects do not grow on trees. They come from the work of members at weekly bingos, a major source, from annual fundraisers like our ‘Whodunit’ mysteries at the museum village, our Fall Family Festival, such as the one planned for October 2nd, where I expect to see all of you enjoying yourselves, and from corporate contributors such as Ontario Power Generation. OPG contributed $5,000 to this project this year and have contributed over $30,000 to our causes over the years. Let me say a special thanks to them for that and other corporate contributors who have given lesser, but also valuable contributions, and last but not least, individual members of the broader heritage community make donations and take out memberships that underline the support for this jewel in our community. Thanks to all of them.

So in ending I wish to say thank you gentlemen, for joining with in partnership with us in making Pickering Museum Village an educational and entertaining place for everyone.

Thank you, and see you all at the fall family festival on October 2nd.