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• Centre is financially stable.  The mortgage was paid off in five years.  BCHS now has $148,825 in the bank.

• It has a prime downtown location and near major bus routes.

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Challenges:

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• Building is aging and requires expensive seismic upgrade, better heating/cooling indoors.
   

• The hall can only accommodate 60 persons.  It is packed for certain events.  It has inadequate storage space and limited parking.
   

• Many individuals and groups donated money over the years to establish and maintain the centre.
   

• Current operation is purely voluntary [except for janitorial work].  This could be unsustainable in the long term unless more young people come forward and participate by volunteering.
   

• A core group of volunteers help run the Centre.  Most of them have been involved in:

  • raising funds since BCHS was established in 1991 [26 years]

  • buying the property and renovating the building in 2001

  • operating the centre for the last 16 years. 

  • They are now in their 60s+ and are getting burned out.

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• There are few new volunteers, despite a dramatic increase in newcomers [immigrants, caregivers, skilled workers] to the Capital Regional District from the Philippines in the past decade.  Most ethno-cultural groups that have a centre face the same dilemma.
   

• Volunteerism across Canada is declining.  Four in 10 Canadians volunteered in 2013 down by four per cent from 2010, just three years earlier.
   

• Decline in the volunteer rate is most pronounced among persons aged 35 to 44 with a six per cent decrease from 2010 to 2013.
   

• There are less newcomers who volunteer than Canadian-born.
   

• Newcomers from some cultural background have never volunteered in their home country.  Some view volunteering as "help" while others as "work without pay."  Some expect entitlement to some tangible benefits for volunteering — not a selfless giving back to the community.  And more women volunteer than men because in some cultures it is not "macho" to volunteer.

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