ASSINIBOIA, Sask. – Kiara Brost and her friends scan the movie posters at the theatre inside the Prince of Wales Cultural and Recreation Centre.
“It’s a treat to come and see a wide screen TV,” explained eight-year-old Brost. “I come as often as I can.”
It’s something the children’s parents would not have been able to do in this town when they were in Grade 3.
Assiniboia was without a cinema for 20 years, said Gerald Muldoon, general manager of the Assiniboia Civic Improvement Association that manages the centre.
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He said the 150-seat theatre features first-run movies three times a week, drawing people from across the region.
“It’s a social thing to do and you often see families coming in together,” said volunteer Lorelei Rogers.
Nearby, seniors drink coffee and share news in the centre’s lobby, while farmers fill a large meeting room for a Farm Credit Canada seminar.
Course facilitator Chris Corbett is pleased with the vivid artwork adorning the walls, the homestyle cooking from the centre’s commercial kitchen and the ample rooms available for plenary and break-out sessions.
“Without the meeting rooms here, we’d have to find a hotel,” he said, admitting there probably wouldn’t be a hotel with meeting rooms in this size of town.
A few steps away, caterers prepare tables for a supper in the auditorium, which features a stage and sound and lighting system.
Across the hall, patrons pore over stacks of books in the Palliser Regional Library.
Rogers, the former chair of the library board, oversaw the volunteer army that transferred 20,000 books in half a day from the former library building.
The library has seen a significant rise in use at a time when most libraries are showing declines, she noted.
During a walking tour, Rogers and Muldoon shared a smile over a playful rainbow of colours built into the building decor.
“When you walk in here, you know you’re going to have fun,” said Rogers, echoing a friend’s comments on her first visit.
A senior’s curling league spills onto four sheets of ice at one end of the expansive building while the music blares inside a fitness club at the other.
Prince Charles first turned the sod for the centre during a visit to the area. It opened in 2003 to service the cultural, recreational, social, educational and economic needs of the southern Saskatchewan town of 2,700 and surrounding community of 20,000.
Less than $1 million remains owing on the $6.4 million centre, which initially received $1.1 million from the provincial government, and is sustained by a host of fundraising activities by volunteers.
An annual lottery helps pay down the mortgage every year, said Muldoon, noting that the centre operates without government funds. He expects to burn the mortgage by 2011.
He said the association fought hard to avoid an increased tax burden for local residents and chose instead to rally the volunteer spirit of the community.
“We felt we had a much better chance of getting volunteers for a civic improvements board rather than working the town,” said Rogers.
The centre generates revenue by leasing space to the Southeast Regional College, an accounting firm and fitness and sports clubs and by hosting events like weddings, polka festivals and old-time dances on the auditorium’s specially designed floating floor.
High school graduation ceremonies take place in the curling rink in spring. Bonspiels can house 1,100 spectators and a festival of trees raises money for both the centre and the hospital.
Together, the whole community was able to create what the town could not do alone, Muldoon said.
Its current fundraising initiative, the Field of Dreams, involves farming a half section of land, offered on a crop share basis by a local farmer. Last year’s $10,000 profit off a field of canola and wheat was enough to convince them to plant again this spring.
They managed to get donations of some inputs and fuel and restored the irrigation capacity on the land to maximize future growing potential. Farmers like Muldoon, who operates a farm near Crane Valley, pitch in to do the field work.
Volunteers were responsible for much of the finishing work inside the centre, said Muldoon, who cited the example of a dumb waiter near the kitchen. A work crew tore it out of a building being renovated in Regina and adapted it to fit the Assiniboia centre. That allowed them to install a food service elevator for $6,000 instead of the estimated cost of $80,000 new.
Rogers called Muldoon a tireless worker and joked about moving a cot into his office.
“Nobody could have kept up the pace Gerald was keeping,” she said.
Muldoon credited a co-operative spirit within the region for helping create the centre.
He sits on the civic improvement association, a group drawn from service clubs, recreation organizations, the arts, government and educational institutions, which raises capital to enhance and operate the complex.
Through this partnership, an umbrella group manages a number of activities and resources and equipment can be shared.
“This is the direction communities ought to go,” said Rogers, who formerly chaired the management committee.
“It’s a sensible thing to do. If people will practise working together, they can do this and it’s good for everybody,” she said.
Rogers and Muldoon believe the centre has led to other developments, including the establishment of the nearby art gallery that features a privately owned collection of national stature.
For the future, the centre would like to add more youth-oriented events and create annual home and garden and quilt shows.
