After much planning and hard work, the ribbon has been cut at the 500 Stephen Street Community Center in Morden.  

"Wow, it's a little overwhelming because it's been about a year that we've been working really hard at getting this place together," said Heidi Janzen, chairperson of the Community Center Task Force who attended the grand opening. 

"It's a great feeling to actually see this all come together, and the support that we're getting is unbelievable! I don't think we envisioned this much support from our community, from the government. It's been quite amazing to have that support. People coming and just celebrating this day with us is very touching."

The space has already been put to good use.

"The vaccination center has been doing some vaccines in here, we've had yoga classes in here, the Ukrainian group has been using this place."

The center will give a permanent home to Morden's Food Bank, now run by Many Hands.

Janzen says it's really a place for everyone. 

"I just cannot stress that enough that we're just here to continue to build community, especially since after the pandemic, to encourage more unity in our area. To me, that's really what this place really means is to bring community together and unity."

For people walking through their doors, Janzen says the center offers relief, a sense of support and the realization that they are a valued member of the community. 

"Our mandate was really just to get this place up and going and getting it started with a small vision of being the hub of resources for everybody in our community."

And the next step?

"To create a board and have two or three people from the task force remain on that board," said Janzen. "I mean, the sky is the limit on what we want to do here. There's all kinds of things that have been talked about, ideas that have been thrown around where we see 500 Stephen continuing to go."

Janzen says it's been incredibly encouraging to have supporting donors and partners catch their vision.