BEPPLE – It’s time the City started helping out rural community halls

BARNHARTVALE, KNUTSFORD AND HEFFLEY CREEK are at the outer edges of Kamloops. They are about as far from each other as any points in Kamloops, but these three neighborhoods of Kamloops have something in common.

Each of these community areas, which are in rural parts of Kamloops, have a community hall. The last three independently run community halls in Kamloops.

In the centre of Kamloops, community space is provided by the City of Kamloops in places like Hal Rogers Activity Centre in Gleneagles, Heritage House in the downtown, Parkview Activity Centre on the North Shore and Valleyview Community Hall on the east side of town. All these spaces are funded and operated by the City.

But at the edges of the City, there are no such community spaces provided by the City. It is small, dedicated community associations which maintain and run the halls in Barnhartvale, Knutsford, and Heffley Creek. The community groups fix the roof, plow the snow, paint the walls and pay the electrical bills. It is up to the community associations to find the funds to keep the halls running.

Each of the three halls have a different feel.

Barnhartvale Hall’s interior is lined with beautiful wood. There is a stage which has housed many an open mike and dance band.

Heffley Creek Hall is the largest of the three. As well as a stage like Barnhartvale, it has a large parking lot, home to many farmers’ markets and flea markets.

Knutsford is the most rustic of the three, hosting one of the last outhouses in the City of Kamloops. There are cattle grazing in the fields around the hall.

I’ve been to all three halls many times over the years for music coffee houses, baby showers, and memorials. For weddings, dances and craft sales.

The halls in Barnhartvale, Knutsford, and Heffley Creek are the heart of their neighbourhoods. They help to create a strong sense of community in these rural Kamloops neighborhoods.

As important as these rural halls are, they receive no ongoing, regular operating funds from the City of Kamloops.

That’s not to say that they don’t receive local government financial support.

From time to time, the City of Kamloops provides grants to the halls. But the funds are sporadic and infrequent. For example, the last sizeable grant from the City of Kamloops to Heffley Creek Hall that I could see was in 2016.

For the most part, the Thompson Nicola Regional District is a much more consistent funder of the halls. The TNRD procures grants on behalf of the halls for things like roof repairs. As well, the rural directors representing the areas immediately outside Kamloops city limits also regularly give money from their directors’ budgets to subsidize the halls.

For example, Mel Rothenburger, the past area director for the rural area adjacent to Heffley Creek, regularly used his director budget to support the hall, such as $1,354 for an electrical upgrade to the hall in 2019. He also helped secure a $45,000 grant from the TNRD for a furnace upgrade.

Thank goodness for the rural TNRD area directors.

It’s time that the City of Kamloops provide ongoing operating funds to these three halls. Every area of Kamloops, whether urban or rural, is a part of our City. Even the far reaches of Barnhartvale, Knutsford and Heffley Creek. The halls are an important part of these neighborhoods. They’re important for so many others of us as well.

Nancy Bepple is a Kamloops City councillor with a strong interest in community building projects.