Cultural Center Update on Tetawathartha

The new cultural center was front and center on todays Tetawathartha, the party line talk show on K1037. Guest included Jessica Hernandez, Kimberly Cross, Lisa Phillips, Kahsennenhawe Sky-Deer. Sky-Deer says that the project remains on target, but fundraising continues, money is still needed. 48 of the 56 million raised to date:

“This is a kick-off to remind the community that this building is going-up, here’s where it’s at, there’s the website, there’s still this amount {needed}, I think that that in terms of a big push, I’m thinking of previous fundraising initiatives, this is where we need to go, there are different ways of getting the community involved in the  fundraising, so I think we’re going to be doing more brainstorming on how we launch.”

According to Kimberly Cross, there is a website, KMPB.ca, detailing the building’s progress so the community is kept informed:

“What we’re going to be doing is putting on pictures of the project, updates, something we’ve been doing. In the next couple of weeks we’re going to be putting up some drone footage of the site, we’re gong to be putting up the recording of today’s {the partyline talkshow} show, on the site, so people can be more aware of what’s going on and well put al the updates on that website: KMPB.ca.”

Once the building is nearing completion, Jessica Lazare on the plans for the start of the 2025 season:

“For right now, we’re working with the Youth Center on programming, in talks about transition, if they’re willing to follow us in there for the 1st year or if we need more time than that, we need to start with programming. we have programming on right now. The programming will start right away and were hoping to have all of the groups together, it just depends on if we have all of the facilitators at the time. We have very big plans to be in there, once we’re open, once the doors are open.”

56 million dollars seems like a massive number, but as Lisa Phillips explains, times have changed and costs have risen:

“The pandemic happened and costs went up and then also just the building itself, we’re talking theatre and museum, so those are very specialized spaces, so with that the price tag went up. We’ve been approached, we’ve submitted proposals to every single corporation funding source, funding envelope, for capital. That’s one thing we’ve had the hard time with, we actually have brought in a lot of money through the capital campaign, a good portion if it was towards programming, so when you approach people, they have different funding envelopes and the funding envelopes we’ve been accessing are for capital.”

The new cultural center construction project requires $56 million in funding, with $48 million raised so far.