Through their From the Ground Up - Safe Healthy Communities for ALL program, the Province of Manitoba has donated $100,000 to St. John the Baptist Ukrainian Catholic Church in Fork River.
Hope Toporowski, Secretary-Treasurer, said the donation means a lot more than just the money to the community: it means the Province wants to support one of the community's most important gathering places.
"It's our spiritual gathering place, I mean that is where you fulfil your spiritual needs, and you make friendships within the community throughout the Church...[the donation] will definitely extend [the Church's lifespan] because it's been going downhill the last few years with the water conditions the way they are, it is deteriorating, and it is rapidly deteriorating now," said Toporowski.
The Church has been around for 88 years. It's withstood the test of time for the most part, but parts of the foundation are in desperate need of repair. Toporowski said this donation will go to helping extend the Church's lifespan by repairing the foundation, which wasn't built with much reinforcement.
"This is our third application to a Government program. We desperately need a new foundation underneath the Church...in the days when the Church was built, which was way back in 1938, I don't know if there was such a thing as rebar, if there was they probably couldn't afford it," said Toporowski.
The announcement was made by Municipal and Northern Relations Minister Glen Simard in a news release on Saturday, which was released at the same time as the Church's annual Zabava. Dauphin MLA Ron Kostyshyn was in attendance, and said the Church has been doing a lot for Fork River since it was built.
"The Church remains a vital hub for worship, community connection and cultural preservation. The legacy of Ukrainian families who worked tirelessly to preserve our rich traditions deserves to be recognized and celebrated," said Kostyshyn.
The Province's news release details some of the efforts that the Fork River community has made to preserve heritage, saying seniors in the community had recently undertaken an effort to identify unmarked graves, combing through many years of physical records. That effort led to the creation of signage and a weatherproof cemetery map.
