On Saturday, December 7, the Friends of Beaverdams Church are once again kicking off the Christmas season with a wreath hanging ceremony and carol sing at the heritage site on Marlatts Road.
“We've been doing it now for, I would say, probably eight or nine years,” group member Donna Cowan tells ThoroldToday. “It's been a long time. The villagers like to get involved. It's a lovely part of town.”
Just like in previous years, the event will coincide with a food drive for Community Care Thorold.
“We're going to have a truck parked in front of the church and people can drop their donations for Community Care in there,” says Cowan.
The event will also feature a Christmas treasures table.
“One of the tables is going to have gently used Christmas decorations and if anybody wants to take one, they can put a donation in the basket,” Cowan says. “And then we're gonna have some re-gifted items. You know, things that maybe you've received as a gift, and you can't use. We’re gonna have a table of those, and same thing, it'll be by donation.”
Cowan says the long-running event has become an important tradition for the ‘Friends’ group.
“It's the way to start Christmas in the giving way,” she says. “It won't be long. People have to dress warmly because there's no heat in the church, but the warmth of our bodies, I think, will warm the place up enough that we can sing a few carols and wish each other a Merry Christmas.”
The renovation of the church is still ongoing. Just last week, a walkway was installed to the portable washroom next to the building.
“We’ve just gotten the walkway done, so we've got to kind of regroup,” says Cowan. “We're going to have the engineer do drawings for a second staircase, and then we'll be able to access the upstairs, and raise the balcony.”
The group hopes to use the upstairs to display historical artifacts from when the building was used as a Sunday school in the early 1800s.
“We’ve got a complete register of all of the items,” Cowan says. “Then we'll be able to do displays once we get the second staircase, and people can go up there.”
It is the group’s hope to start renting out the downstairs of the building come spring.
“If somebody wanted to have a small art show, say three or four artists wanted to go in, they could rent it,” says Cowan. “Or if there's community groups that maybe want to have some kind of little fundraiser — it will be available for community use.”
Cowan credits the success of the church restoration project to the local community.
“It really means a lot to us,” she says. “We're just a small little group of people who are interested in a heritage building but the support that we're getting from the community is just wonderful.”
The event is taking place on Saturday, December 7 at 1 p.m.
