New St. Pat’s Board Named To Determine Future Of Centre

A new board of directors has been named to St. Pat’s Family Centre to look at the future of the facility.

Around 22 members attended a meeting last night.

Louis Bourque is one of four who volunteered to be on the new board.

He worked for St. Pat’s around 50 years ago and has been a member for almost four years, “We’re sort of rookies coming into this, but someone had to step up. It is just a matter of saying, is there anything we can do to revitalize this thing? It used to have such a presence in the community. I hated to see it go.  We are at a crossroads right now, but there is a lot of work to be done, there’s no doubt about it.”

In October, the membership voted to sell the property to Heritage Resources, for $1.9 million, with a 20 year lease back to the new St. Pat’s board for $1 per year. Lawyer Robert Basque says the deal stalled, because changes were made to the proposal.

Partenaire Dumont provided a loan of $100, 000 to keep it heated throughout the winter and also pay for insurance.

Bourque says, “My great desire would be to have a real community for the young people, and get them off the streets and have programs for them. At one time, this place was an extremely vibrant place full of sports and swimming activities. Everything was happening here.”

Meetings are planned for the new Board in the coming months, and they will also be able to recruit others who would like to come onboard.

The new board members are Louis Bourque, Leslie Tse, Maria Mutch and Michael Cahill.

St. Pat’s closed its doors in July last year, due to financial issues.