The Church of St. Mary the Virgin in Oak Bay expands on its After Hours offerings in a bid to build a Centre of Community.
“Community is not just a place … community is actually the people who inhabit geography, and how we inhabit geography,” said Rev. Craig Hiebert.
The latest endeavour is the After Hours Art that grew from the monthly Churchmouse After Hours, which itself was inspired by the original Churchmouse Bookstore.
The arts program launches this month with three workshop streams running simultaneously: storytelling, music and poetry.
It’s all a part of building a healthy community, Hiebert says, working with the neighbours is one way to achieve connectivity.
“Because of the hustle and bustle of the world, we end up silo’d in our own yards,” he said. “We imagine a shared space where the whole community can learn and practice being a whole community.”
The church first brought neighbours in with the Churchmouse Book Store which inspired the monthly Churchmouse After Hours coffee house.
“It’s such a mixed community,” said Angela Healy, working on community research for the project.
Heavily populated and walkable, the church building makes an ideal neighbourhood hub, reflected even just by the tenants of the complex, with a performing arts school and daycare next door.
The addition of arts includes a month of weekly sessions. Stephanie Khoury facilitates the Creative Community Music Ensemble, Anita Lahey the Field Trips into Poetry and Anne Glover leads Stories in the Air and each of the weekly evenings starts with soup.
“It’s such an important time to be together,” Healy said, reflecting on the chaos of the world, Toronto’s tragic van attack where 10 people were killed still fresh.
“Arts and music are so good for that,” added Khoury, music workshop facilitator. “You can share in a way that we don’t in our ordinary lives.”
The workshops run May 30 and June 6, 13 and 20 wrapping with a cabaret Churchmouse After Hours on June 27.
Funding from the Churchmouse Book Store matched by the Anglican Diocese of British Columbia makes for a more accessible series of workshops. The fees are on a sliding scale, $40 to $80 and covers the soup supper, materials and borrowing a tablet in the Creative Community Music Ensemble workshop.
Programs launch with a free open house May 9, at 7 p.m. at St. Mary’s is at 1701 Elgin Rd. For more information visit www.stmarysoakbay.ca/aha2018, call 250-598-2212 or email aha@stmarysoakbay.ca.
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