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North Vancouver museum fundraising effort at halfway mark as deadline looms

It’s turning into a fundraising campaign for the history books. Working on a tight timeline, volunteers working to secure a new North Vancouver Museum and Archives at the Shipyards in Lower Lonsdale have now raised $2.
museum
City of North Vancouver historical characters Shipyard Sal and Sam at a federal funding announcement for the North Vancouver Museum and Archives in August. file photo, Mike Wakefield

It’s turning into a fundraising campaign for the history books.

Working on a tight timeline, volunteers working to secure a new North Vancouver Museum and Archives at the Shipyards in Lower Lonsdale have now raised $2.5 million, meaning they are 50 per cent of the way to reaching their goal of raising $5 million.

If that lofty target is achieved by Dec. 31, 2015, the City of North Vancouver will match all non-municipal cash contributions up to $5 million. In July 2013, the museum and archives received conditional approval from city council to develop a museum inside the Pipe Shop at the foot of Lonsdale Avenue. Since then the time has been ticking down.

At Monday’s council meeting, campaign chairman Don Evans was optimistic the group would meet their target by the end of December to create a new waterfront museum.

“We’re working hard and we’re making progress,” Evans told council. “Our commitment is still to reach the $5 million we have to raise by the 31st of December 2015… and we believe that we will achieve that.”

When Evans last updated council in July, the group had raised approximately $200,000. The new total includes $2.2 million from the federal government.

The new museum at the shipyards is planned as an interactive cultural history museum. At the new location, the museum would nearly triple its square footage and be able to deliver expanded programs and exhibits.

The campaign for a new museum at the shipyards is being led by a 10-person campaign cabinet, all of whom have strong local roots and have personally contributed to the fundraising effort.

The drive has also been supported by members of the North Vancouver Museum and Archives Commission. As well as the major donor portion of the fundraising effort, there’s also a public campaign with a target of raising $100,000 that is between 20 to 30 per cent complete.