This week’s paper shares several stories about people across the Pontiac organizing themselves to hold onto the spaces that hold us. 

In Pontiac county’s northeastern corner, Danford Lake residents celebrated the beginning of a new chapter for their beloved community hall. In the early ‘70s, without a designated space to gather, residents of Danford Lake took matters into their own hands and found a way to build one.

Bethany Hall, erected by volunteers in 1976 on land owned by the church across the street, has held the community in moments of grief and joy for 50 years, offering residents a space to reaffirm their commitment to their neighbours, over and over again, through simple acts like showing up to cook a dozen turkeys together, or play a game of cards. For those five decades, it was a committee of volunteers who raised the money to keep up with building repairs and expansions. Because communities need spaces where people can commune. 

Last year, recognizing that in Quebec there’s only so much you can do for a building technically owned by a church, the municipality put motions in place to purchase the hall. On Saturday afternoon, before digging into yet another shared meal, the community came together to honour the hall’s legacy and celebrate its new beginning, which will make it easier to secure funding needed to maintain the institution for years to come. 

An hour south of Danford, Quyon residents have also rallied to protect a treasured community institution. Last year, the town’s Family Centre announced it had lost substantial funding (to the tune of $200,000), which threatened its ability to continue offering key services like its playgroup, or its seniors’ meet-and-greet. But the community stepped up to the plate. Several key staff who had to be let go continued working as volunteers. And now, thanks to bottle drives, Lions Club fundraisers, private donations and local businesses pitching in portions of their sales, the Family Centre says it’s back in the black and is slowly bringing back some of the programs it had to cut to make ends meet. 

And an hour west, in Fort-Coulonge, a small group of residents are just beginning conversations around how to hold onto the town’s Café Downtown, which was listed for sale at the end of 2025. The small restaurant opened in 2021 and has since become a hub for community events. Organizers of this effort say it is key to social life and for the region’s tourism development, and they’re going to try to do something to keep it in the community. 

And these are but three examples of the quiet but dedicated work of protecting treasured community institutions. It’s happening across this region, and has been for decades. Look only to the committees working hard to raise money for their local arenas, or the curling club, which after a challenging winter welcomed curlers back to the ice this week. This care for communal spaces seems to be baked into the bones of the people who live here.  

The work of reporting on a community often draws us to stories about challenges or about what is lacking – whether it be nurses or road maintenance or jobs or firefighters. But as important as highlighting Pontiac’s challenges is telling the stories of its resilience, and all that people here are doing to ensure that at the end of the day, we still have a place to come together.  For that reason, assembling this week’s paper was a privilege.