Living, learning centre in Baddeck celebrates milestone

The centre offers presentations and programs for the general pub

The Bold Centre, a living learning centre located in Baddeck, celebrated its fifth year in June as it continues to provide a space to nurture the health and development of the community’s children while honouring the wisdom of elders. The idea for Bold began just over five years ago, when a group of mothers got together and saw a need in the community for after-school and summer programming. From there, it transformed into something that kept that original vision, while capturing parts of the community.

“It’s come from some great people coming together, which was some moms trying to provide care for summer camps or after school. And now it’s evolved into something just beautiful,” said Bold Centre board member, Rosella Born. A business plan was started and the founders knew they needed a hub created by the community for community, which offered different recreation programs.

LEAVING A LEGACY When first starting to grow the ideas around what programming to offer, Born shared that Henry Fuller and the late Dr. William Fitzgerald were instrumental in the organization being founded. “They are visionaries, Henry just thinks about the best interest of the community, they really don’t have an agenda and don’t want anything but wanting to give back,” said Born. “And Dr. Fitzgerald was the same way, it was what can we do to leave a legacy and leave a future for the kids.”

Fitzgerald pushed for the board to take up an interest in community health in terms of supporting young children and seniors. In 2021, Fitzgerald and Fuller helped pay off the mortgage so there wasn’t any overhanging debt, which made things easier when applying for grants. The board was structured so skills from different essential parts of a community were present to build out the organization.

Born said the centre is thankful for the community’s support since they began their journey. “It’s intergenerational, the commitment that the school has given to the Bold Centre, the other non-profits in the area, the work with the library, the municipality, we could go on and on. It’s just been a beautiful intertwined woven fabric of growing Bold Centre into what the community is looking for and what their needs are,” said Born.

Now five years later they celebrated their accomplishments with a celebration at the centre on June 13. They welcomed the community, celebrated five years of owning the building, and looked at engagement for their upcoming strategic plan. “It was somewhat of an open house for people to come in and we had these posters throughout the building.

For example, one said what’s the future of Bold in five years. And people could write their ideas down and a lot of information was captured and we will bring that to our strategic plan,” said Born. “So, it was a little bit of an engagement session as well.

We’re pretty excited about that because it’s really going to really help force the direction of Bold, is having that public input.” Born said the strategic plan will form what new programs might come out and what grants could come up in the future. The centre offers presentations and programs for the general public, which includes: theatre group, drop in days, space rental, child and parent socialization camps, and a summer camp which is now taking place.

Looking over Bold’s journey, Born shared there was much to celebrate. Just in the last year they saw over 4,000 people come through the door to attend programming. “And that grows every year and that’s a success,” said Born.

Adam McNamara is the Local Journalism Initiative reporter for The Victoria Reporter