The Southern Cortes Community Association (SCCA) pulled its bootstraps up last week and managed to give the Mansons Hall deck a facelift with a minimal custodial budget around $2,000. Despite having grant funding on the way, the association said there was an urgent need to provide more outdoor seating for Julie’s Cafe as the high summer tourist season approaches.
The hall hosted a workbee on May 9 that provided eight volunteers with a meal while they weeded, removed invasive plants like holly and broom, and refinished the edges of the fencing on the deck.
The non-profit has yet to see any grant funding from the Healthy Communities Initiative Grant, due to the multi-stage nature of the larger project which is developing a trails system in the heart of downtown Mansons. That grant, awarded in October 2022, was a joint venture with the Village Commons and the Rainbow Ridge Affordable Housing Project. The SCCA expects to see $25,000 go towards deck renovations for Mansons Hall, but the money won't come until autumn 2023 and is reliant on other funds raised to match the $25,000 awarded.
The SCCA applied for the SRD Fire Mitigation grant back in November 2022, which provides the "matching funds" the Healthy Communities grant relies on. In April, Tammy Collingwood, executive director for the SCCA, reached out to hear if their application for $50,000 worth of fire-retardant materials had been awarded and has not heard a response. Collingwood explained that structural assessments have indicated that the deck has one more year of life before its integrity is compromised. Cost estimates to replace the deck are currently at $75,000.
“Unfortunately, we haven't heard anything back from the SRD and …potentially even more food service happening here through our community kitchen…as the summer comes, we're looking at increasing the seating capacity outside on the deck. Even though we haven't received the funding we're looking at doing some smaller upgrades just to make due.”
The deck isn’t the only infrastructure in need of attention to accommodate food service patrons: the commercial kitchen also lacks deep freezers, refrigeration, and dry storage to hold inventory for value-added food businesses. The executive director acknowledged this infrastructure gap as well, but there is no current effort to fund comprehensive food storage for the commercial kitchen at Mansons Hall. Currently Julie's Cafe relies on off-site private storage to hold inventory for Julie's Cafe.
To hear more about the SCCA’s hopes for the Mansons Hall infrastructure and use of the café and deck, listen to the CKTZ News Update below: