The Brydges Centre School Project Update

Dear Friends of the Brydges Centre,

Our heartfelt thanks for your help with the Brydges Centre school project. The Brydges Centre continues to be blessed with no COVID cases and healthy children doing very well in school. We wanted to provide you with an update on what has been happening with our new school project.

We have just now dedicated the new preschool building and surrounding property which is a beautiful facility that will serve the children of the Centre and will also draw paying families from the community. The building has six large rooms, indoor restrooms for the girls and boys, a principal’s office, and a very nice playground.

Based on original cost estimates, we had planned to build a school complex that included a two-story elementary school building with eight classrooms, the preschool building, the new playground, and other site enhancements such as an external gate to the community and a new plumbing and septic system. With changing requirements regarding room capacity due to COVID, new and unexpected government construction requirements being imposed, and a quadrupling of material costs, we have had to scale back the project. As noted above, we have completed the preschool building, playground, site enhancements for the school complex, plumbing and septic, and the new Brydges Centre School entry gate to allow community students to enter.

Based on current cost of materials and the new government construction requirements, we have a revised estimate of an additional $575,000 to complete the two-story elementary school building.  We have placed this phase of the project on hold and we plan to use the balance of the money raised to remodel the old elementary school facilities. This will provide adequate space for current elementary school students, but it will not accommodate the larger number of paying students we had planned for that would help generate additional income for the children’s home.

We will continue to seek solutions to facilitate the elementary school’s construction and will keep you posted on that. If you have any questions about the project or would like to know how you can help, please reach out to me personally at rbrydges@comcast.net. We trust this project will be realized and that the Brydges Centre School will be able to transform even more lives.

Bob Brydges

Board Chair, Brydges Centre US