Lord Roberts Community Centre

The Lord Roberts community is located in the heart of Winnipeg’s Fort Rouge neighbourhood. It represents over 5,000 community members and is a growing socio-economically diverse neighbourhood. The Lord Roberts Community Centre (LRCC) is a vital part of the community, offering a broad range of recreational and leisure activities for people of all ages and needs, seven days a week. It’s a place to meet neighbours, explore new hobbies and interests, or volunteer to give back to the community.

A full-sized gym/hall is available to rent for a variety of sports, parties, and socials. The facility also has a wall-to-wall mirrored dance studio that is rented as a rehearsal space for dancers. The youth lounge in the basement is a fun space with pool tables, foosball, and ping-pong, and is used daily by the centre’s free after-school program for kids aged 6-12. One of the LRCC’s most successful community programs is the South Osborne Bike Hub: A community-run bike shop unlike most others. Rather than a fee-for-service model, the Bike Hub supervises and supports a do-it-yourself model funded by donations and grants.

In the winter, the club operates two outdoor ice rinks. The first is a seasonal rink set up in the fields for sponge hockey. The other is paved rink with dressing rooms for recreational ice sports and some good old fashioned “shinny.” From June to September, this rink transforms into a bustling community-gathering place on Wednesday nights with the South Osborne Farmers Market. The LRCC also has a vibrant community garden, which is managed by the Sustainable South Osborne Community Co-op.

The co-op has turned patches of weeds into productive gardens that bring community members together. The LRCC needs to upgrade its canteen and kitchen space to expand its programming, and run a kids cooking club and kids-operated canteen. In order to run the club and canteen effectively, the LRCC would like to upgrade its cold storage and computer technology within the centre. It would also like to add a commercial dishwasher, water bottle refill station, ice machine, grease trap replacement, and various small kitchen appliances and kitchen wares to operate the cooking club.

“Ultimately, our goal is to foster a sense of community, and we are taking that vision a step further by reconnecting people to their community and to each other.”