The Peachland Historic School building when it was home to the district's information centre.

Image Credit: Murray Wood

Peachland Historic School is going to be the home of a new umbrella organization dedicated to creating a community around arts, culture and ecology.

The Okanagan Folk School, the Peachland Community Arts Council and the Bat Education and Ecological Protection Society are banding together. 

The three societies will sign an agreement with the District of Peachland today, Feb. 16, to form Our Peachland School for Arts, Culture & Ecology Society, otherwise known as Our SPACE.

The historic schoolhouse was home to the arts council and the district’s information centre, but since the information centre is moving to a new location former folk school director and Peachland Mayor Patrick Van Minsel proposed the three societies could share the space.

READ MORE: There are more bats in the Okanagan than anywhere else in Canada

Murray Wood, president and founder of the Okanagan Folk School, will be the president of Our SPACE.

The schoolhouse is going to be a dedicated place for all three societies to run programs and benefit from the revenue generated by renting it out for events.

“The new society is like a management umbrella for the building and the three societies that are housed there,” Wood said.

He said Our SPACE will be a hub for the community with a gift shop and coffee shop along with the arts council’s existing gallery.

Finding a location for the folk school has been a challenge.

“We’ve been gathering artisans together and creating more and more workshops and continuing to increase our marketing, but having a home was always our dream. It seemed fairly insurmountable because you’d need millions of dollars to get property and build something,” Wood said.

His goal with the Okanagan Folk School is to bring people together, and this space will do just that.

READ MORE: Peachland's Okanagan Folk School expanding the local arts scene

“One of the things the folk school has always wanted to do is create a community because loneliness is at an epidemic level in Canada,” he said.

“We could do courses and everyone loved that but there was no follow up. No way we could create an extended community. With this building people can come by for all sorts of different experiences, not just the folk school experience. It will have a coffee shop for them to visit, and we'll have a gift shop that will be populated by items that will be handmade by local artisans.”

Housing all of the classes, programs and events under one roof is beneficial.

“We will be able to better serve the public through knowing precisely what each society is doing and what their goals are and Our SPACE’s job is to make sure all those things are being done,” he said. “We all have databases and we can start cross marketing for each other. The bat people database can be sending out information for the other two groups and vice versa.”

People can join the celebration at the HeARTs Festival at 6 p.m. at the Peachland Community Centre for $20.

Wood said this is just the beginning.

“Stay tuned. We can see the potential but there are a lot of mechanical things to put in place to get there. It’s going to be a bit of a social experiment,” he said.

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