“We are hoping to open it in the future, but not right now,” said Don Hoadley, executive director of Colchester Community Workshops.
The store has been closed since March 2015, after an adjoining facility’s roof collapsed under heavy snow.
The way the community rallied around the organization since then was a big topic at the workshops’ annual general meeting Tuesday.
“We are still working toward a new facility, but it takes time to collect money,” Hoadley said. “After the roof collapsed, the community was very good to us – they fundraised, they made private donations.”
Plans for the new facility were put on hold at the time. Not only did the store’s operations come to a standstill, three programs were displaced.
Two of those programs – Small Contracts and Contracts Plus – have been operating out of the Halliday’s building, next to their facility.
“Our production assembly came back into our main building,” said Hoadley. “We turned it into a cleaning program, so now they do all the cleaning here.”
The workshops currently serves 80 clients, the highest it has been since it started in the late 1960s.
But while there are 80 being served, there are another 14 on a waiting list.
“That really does show the community interest in the services we offer,” Hoadley said.
At the meeting, Dave Mills was elected president, with Kay Delaney filling the vice-president’s role.
Twitter: @TDNRaissa
