Grants being applied for by the Central Vancouver Island Japanese Canadian Cultural Society could fund cultural space and a heritage site in Nanaimo.
At a City of Nanaimo finance committee meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 21, Brian Sugiyama, vice-president of the society –also known as 7 Potatoes from the Japanese words nana for seven and imo for potato – asked that council membersrecommend applications to the Japanese Canadian Legacies Society for grants for a cultural and performing arts space in Beban Park Social Centre and a heritage site on Nanaimo’s waterfront.
Sugiyama said 7 Potatoes intends to renovate Room 6 in the social centre with a $250,000 grant and create a Taiko drumming group.
“What we will do with that money is do sound dampening in that room, put some select decorative items that would be on the walls that will be indicative of Japanese culture as well,” Sugiyama said.
The room would continue to be available for bookings through Nanaimo’s parks, recreation and culture department.
The society also seeks approval from the city to enter into a joint application to pursue a $400,000 Japanese Canadian Legacies Society grant to create a heritage site on the waterfront. Sugiyama said the society has a couple of locations in mind that could meet requirements.
“What we would feature would be a meditative site where visitors could stop, learn about herring salteries that existed on Saysutshun and brought economic growth to Nanaimo in the early 1900s to 1930s,” Sugiyama said. “Nanaimo was known as the world’s herring capital at that time.”
Interpretive displays would portray the thriving business community that existed along Stewart Avenue, which included a language school on the corner of Juniper Street and Stewart Avenue.
The site would also tell how Japanese-Canadians were forcibly uprooted from Nanaimo and other communities in B.C. and “displaced, dispossessed, incarcerated and exiled” during the Second World War. Just five per cent of Nanaimo’s Japanese-Canadians returned to the city following the war, Sugiyama said.
“So the site will be the first signage to acknowledge that this very vibrant community existed prior to World War II and what we want to do is provide that acknowledgment,” he said. “We’ve had a couple sessions with people and many have ancestors who have lived in Nanaimo, but don’t see anything that acknowledges that, so what we want to do is use that $400,000 heritage grant to build that and create that special site.”
Coun. Janice Perrino asked about the certainty of the $250,000 grant and if there were any concerns about cost overruns for the renovation work.
“We’re in the last phases of getting the required items, which includes, today, the lease agreement that’s with the city,” Sugiyama said.
He said 7 Potatoes is confident it will not exceed the grant amount for the renovations, since the work doesn’t require structural changes to the room, just to amenities such as adding storage cupboards and carpeting.
“Maybe another phase of something for expansion, I can’t say that won’t happen, but right now we’re pretty confident we’ll stay within that for that capital infrastructure grant,” Sugiyama said.
The committee recommended approval of a five-year licence agreement for use of the room, contingent upon success of the grant application, and recommended the joint grant application between the city and 7 Potatoes for funding up to $400,000 from the Japanese Canadian Legacies Society to create a heritage site on Nanaimo’s waterfront.
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