Future looking brighter for schoolhouse where L.M. Montgomery taught

P.E.I.'s Lower Bedeque Schoolhouse is back from the financial brink, and the volunteers who run it say they've come up with ways to further ensure a more stable future for the schoolhouse where Anne of Green Gables author L.M. Montgomery once taught.

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In 2015, the attraction's volunteer board reported it was struggling to stay open and knew something had to be done, so it made a couple of fairly major changes.

"We've always sort of run on a promise," said Mary Kendrick, chair of the board of directors of the schoolhouse.

Now charging admission

"Last year we decided because it was always free entrance before to put a $2 admission fee onto it, and $5 per family," said Kendrick. "We had a few issues with people not wanting to pay their fee, they wanted to look through the windows! But generally it went not too bad."

The other major fundraiser is a painting of the schoolhouse, donated by well-known Island artist Maurice Bernard.

It will be auctioned off at the attraction's blueberry social in August, and if it's like Bernard's other works, it could bring in $600 or more but it'll also leave a legacy.

The board has madeprints of the paintingthat it will sell in two different sizes: one that fits an 11 by 14-inch frame for $27, and one to fit an 8 by 10-inch frame for $17.

'Able to earn income'

"We've never done this in the past, but we feel now we sort of have to sort of diversify ourselves and be able to earn income other than just the admission fee and the couple of fundraisers that we do," said Kendrick.

The board carried out a lot of repairs on the little wooden building last season, she said, and has received a $1,500 grant to replace windows this summer.

The schoolhouse has also applied for Canada 150 funding for a large weekend gathering this summer to include a lobster supper, along with the Bedeque Historical Society and the Friends of the Seacow Head Lighthouse. It hopes to fnd out this coming week if it will receive the grant.

The Leard House,where Montgomery boarded while teaching at the schoolhouse for six months in 1897, opened last summer as a caf and gift shop, and the attractions send visitors each other's way, Kendrick noted. LeardHouse owner July Edgcomb is also on the schoolhouse's board.

The schoolhouse is also in discussions with Campbell Webster Entertainmentto be added as part of an Anne of Green Gables packagewhich includes entrance to the Anne of Green Gables Museum in Park Corner, the L.M. Montgomery Birthplace in New London, P.E.I., the site of L.M. Montgomery's Cavendish homeand tickets to the musical Anne and Gilbert, Kendrick said.

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