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Faith Stories
A Long View of St. James Community Square
A conversation between Mel Lehan, Co-founder and present Co-chair of SJCS and Rev. Sally Harris
Mel, tell us a little bit about yourself.
I’m a Kitsilano boy. I grew up here and went to General Gordon Elementary and Kitsilano High. While in high school I went to Hi-C at Kitsilano United Church when it was just across the street. While there I met my best friend and my first girlfriend. We did a lot of memorable activities in this youth group – hikes, dances, discussions. I still live in Kitsilano with my wife Barbara. We raised our three children, Shaina, Kathleen and Mira here. I find great reward in being involved in my neighourhood where I have taken part in a number of community projects. Recently, I helped bring the weekly summer Farmer’s Market to Kitsilano. Years ago, I worked with my neighbours to help save Kitsilano’s housing stock from being bulldozed. This gave me great satisfaction, as my parents had done similar work to protect the community back in the 70’s. In between these two activities, I have worked on such projects as day lighting Tatlow Creek, preserving the Pt. Grey Foreshore, and being an organizer for Kits Days. At the moment, I am working with a wonderful group of people to organize carfree block parties.
What got you interested in St. James Community Square?
I’ve been involved with St. James Community Square from day one. Back in the early nineties I heard that the two neighourhood United Churches were combining. I took the opportunity to put together a group of people from the area and we talked with Linda Ervin, the Kits United Minister about the idea of creating a much needed community gathering space. She was very supportive of the idea. Working together over a period of time, we created St. James Community Square. From the beginning we formed a strong partnership with Trinity United. Trinity’s commitment to outreach and social justice strongly paralleled our own dreams. There has been a constant stream of Trinity people involved in our wonderful journey. It started with Linda Ervin, Jane Hudson, Corrine Durston and Heather Main and is today being carried on by Elizabeth Gautschi and Lisa MacIntosh.
How long ago was that?
The Square was created in 1993
Is your passion still as strong?
Absolutely! When we started, I had a wish list for the new St. James Community Square. I remember four particular things that I hoped we could create.
1) A gathering space for the community. A place where all sorts of groups would meet and many activities would take place.
2) A Performing Arts space in the sanctuary
3) A Community Health Centre in the basement
4) A large office with a common space where diverse community advocacy and support groups would share desks telephones, computers, photocopier and other essential tools to achieve their startup dreams of providing a community service.
Looking back over fifteen years, we have achieved some of these goals, abandoned others and are still mulling the possibility of some.
1) The gathering space has been achieved beyond our wildest dreams. We now provide a wonderful space for as many different activities as you can think of - and more.
2) The Performing Arts space is well on its way.
3) Much to my sadness, the Community Health Centre idea has been abandoned. An expert came in and told us that our space is too small for such a project.
4) The community office to assist beginning organizations has never been tried. It’s still a possibility depending on how space evolves in the future.
What sustains your passion?
Look at what we have achieved! I believe the possibilities are as endless as the dreams of the people in our community. Two recent examples of how The Square inspires me are Kits Classics and the opera “Condemned” Johanna Hauser, a Kitsilano resident, has been sharing for ten years her talent and knowledge of classical music to bring the classics so that we can afford and understand them. This week, I was able to bring an opera written and performed by the Downtown Eastside community to Kitsilano so that our two communities could meet, share culture, and talk to each other about the important issue of homelessness. The Hall was filled to capacity for three straight nights. After events like this, my passion only grows stronger.
What would you describe as the most important outreach that St. James Community Square offers?
I am most proud of how we provide inclusiveness and availability to everyone. The facilities we offer to non profit and community groups are below market rate (and where necessary are even sometimes free) This allows groups who otherwise would not be able to provide their services and programmes, to get to the people who need them.
Is there anything further that you would like to add that I haven’t asked?
Yes. I have had the pleasure for the past few months of working on renewing our lease with Trinity United. It is such a delight to see how the goals and principles of the current Minister, Sally Harris, the Chair of the Trustees, Beverly Tamboline, and the committee members, Ken Allard, Graeme Keirstead and John McCreery so wonderfully mesh with our own. This partnership and the community gathering space that we have together created, continues to be a great joy in my life.
Ten years ago, I was diagnosed with esophageal cancer and was given a very slight chance of surviving. I decided to concentrate on healing, and dropped out of everything that I was involved in, to focus on that important journey. Everything that is, except St. James Community Square. I must have been involved in a dozen community projects at the time of diagnosis. I’ve never really analyzed why I stayed with the Square at that critical time. Looking back as I write this, I think I now know why. Most of my adult life has been spent in building community. When I decided to take a breather, I think that I needed to have The Square continue to be in my life because it embodied so much of what I believed in. So as I went forth on my healing journey, St. James Community Square remained my constant companion. It has truly been a love affair.
Written by Colleen A.- Member of Trinity United Church
February 2006
 I was born and raised on a dairy farm in Revelstoke, BC, which provided me ample opportunity to understand the connections between myself and all other living things – both plant and animal.
Spacious green pastures, cows and all the other farm animals you’d expect to find, along with rides on tractors, afternoons playing in hay mows, and swims in the back-waters of the Columbia River, shaped my first 12 years. So did what seemed to be mountains of snow and long winters, always chock-full of skating, skiing, tobogganing, and road-hockey for my brothers. Summer months spent at my grandparent’s farm in the Fraser Valley complimented the life I enjoyed. Everything was fresh: the meat, the produce, the line-dried clothes, the very air I breathed. Sprinkled amid these years was my baptism at the Anglican Church, two years at the Catholic Kindergarten run by Mother Superior, summer Sunday School in Chilliwack with a Mennonite congregation and 2 week-long stints at their summer camp. At the age of 12 I seriously considered being a Missionary when I grew up. That was my last summer spent on my grandparent’s farm.
This idyllic life shifted abruptly with the damming of the Columbia River at Castlegar and the demise of ‘my’ beloved farm. I entered my teen years wary of change and government, as we moved to a new home and a new way of life. I left the church behind.
After a few bumpy years in high-school, I graduated and left the small town that had held me close all those years. I have often said that if I hadn’t been ‘from’ Revelstoke, it would be a great place to live. A beautiful, small town nestled in the mountains, graced with many residents who hail from pioneer families. But, when I was 17, the smallness and familiarity was the last thing I wanted. Instead, I turned my feet toward Vancouver, where I was sure adventures and opportunities awaited me. I was right.
Since leaving my home-town, I have had the pleasure of living in 2 provinces, and 9 different communities. I have lived in Vancouver on 4 different occasions and spent 1 ½ years in a small hamlet in Saskatchewan. Bulyea, Saskatchewan boasted a population of 92!
The common denominators in almost all the jobs I have had is helping people and some sense of creativity, although a stint at BC Packers in ’74 might not quite qualify on this one! I have returned to classrooms at least a half-dozen times since grade 12, following the leads that curiosity and interest have provided. Throughout the long journey from my twelfth summer when I truly felt connected with ‘the church’, I have always carried my spirituality and beliefs close to my heart.
In the summer of 2001 I returned to Vancouver. My first Sunday in the city I came to service at Trinity, looking for something. . . that which I can now name as: safety, quiet, spiritual grounding,community, and a place to heal. I found all of these, and much, much more. But that is another story. . .
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