Cumberland County community centre facing financial stress

Luke Ettinger · CBC News

· Posted: Nov 07, 2025 5:00 AM EST | Last Updated: 12 hours ago

A assemblage centre that serves the River Hebert and Joggins country successful bluish Nova Scotia is struggling to support its doors unfastened successful the look of rising costs and a simplification successful backing from the municipality.

The River Hebert, Joggins and Area Community Centre has operated since 2022, boasting a nationalist room branch, nutrient pantry, assemblage lounge, gymnasium and fittingness centre. It besides has a backup generator and acts arsenic a comfortableness centre during powerfulness outages.

But the enactment that runs the centre successful the erstwhile Brookside Curling Club gathering successful River Hebert is present pinching pennies portion grappling with a worrisome fiscal representation it expects to worsen with higher bills during the winter.

The River Hebert, Joggins and Area Development Association received an yearly operating assistance of astir $43,000 from the Municipality of Cumberland for this fiscal year. It received $54,000 the erstwhile twelvemonth and had asked for an summation to support up with costs.

“At this point, we cognize we're not going to marque it until, like, adjacent summertime erstwhile we would hopefully get wealth again from the county,” says Kathryn Richards, the association's treasurer.

“It's stressful not being capable to supply that, knowing that we're not unfastened connected a regular ground and not knowing wherever our adjacent cheque is coming from.” 

Richards was the lone unit subordinate astatine the centre until the improvement relation chopped the part-time presumption earlier this year. She continues to unpaid but the centre is present unfastened lone sporadically aft antecedently operating from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. 7 days a week.

Alex Poplar, seat of the association, said the alteration successful backing from the municipality puts the centre and the services it houses successful jeopardy. 

“We've seen bare cupboards. We've seen radical who had to prime betwixt eating and paying the powerfulness bill. And that's wherefore that is truthful important to our area, and that's wherefore receiving little funds for it has been truthful hard connected our area.”

Municipality of Cumberland Mayor Rod Gilroy said request for grants past twelvemonth was much than $1.6 million, but determination was conscionable implicit $913,000 allocated to assemblage groups.

"Hardly anybody got what they asked for."

But Gilroy reaffirmed his enactment for the assemblage centre and said the municipality is successful treatment with the River Hebert Village Commission astir an country complaint to enactment it.

"I'm not successful a spot wherever I americium astatine each prepared to fto this happening spell upside down connected our watch," the politician said.

Richards, who continues to use for grants, said galore are for large projects alternatively than day-to-day expenses. For example, the relation was palmy successful securing much than $80,000 from the state for installation of an HVAC strategy this year.

She said the radical besides accepts backstage donations, sells advertizing abstraction successful the gymnasium, charges for fittingness centre memberships and hosts fundraisers. But she said it tin beryllium challenging successful an country wherever galore families person constricted disposable income.

The mean household income successful the River Hebert and Joggins country is astir $60,000, according to Statistics Canada data. The mean for each of Nova Scotia is adjacent to $88,000.  

Poplar said that is each the much crushed the assemblage centre is needed successful a spot wherever immoderate don’t person net oregon adjacent powerfulness astatine home.  

“We person done everything we tin to marque this installation service the community,” helium said.

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