Sackville Commons and Coworking Space Gears up to Start Connecting
The town of Sackville will soon have a space for entrepreneurs, artists, artisans and non-profits to share ideas and build a sense of community.
The Sackville Commons and Coworking space is set to open in September out of the former fire hall and police station at 62 and 64 Main Street. Julia Feltham, one of the space’s founders, says that with its many creative professionals, freelancers, entrepreneurs and non-profits, Sackville has been in need of a space like this for a while.
Coming from Halifax where she worked as the director of social impact for The Hub Halifax, Feltham knew the benefit of having a shared space where people come together to work on programs and projects that wouldn’t happen otherwise.
“I got totally hooked and I thought that as a sort of country gal … that’s exactly what towns need and rural areas need and that was sort of the perfect blend of rural and urban to get something like that done,” she said.
Feltham has worked on the space with fellow founders Melody Petlock, executive director of Daybreak Activity Centre, and Rachel Mathis, founder of Invigorate Leaders. She says they’ve also had help from a cooperative landlord and sponsors who will help make the space a fun and fantastic looking.
Feltham explained that many non-profits in the area struggle to afford their own office spaces and office resources and that the Sackville Commons will provide those resources along with meeting space. She says they’re also working towards hosting a mental health activities centre and developing a youth centre over the next few years.
“I hope it’s a place where people know to go to bring ideas to action,” Feltham said. “I feel like Sackville doesn’t know they’re all on the same team and there’s no neutral ground for them to foster that belief. There’s no place where there’s a healthy conversation about competing solutions for our problems, there’s only like public consultations where only the mad, the bad and the sad show up.”
“I’m hoping that when someone wants to get something done in Sackville, they’ll know that there’s a place where you can go that’s basically the collaboration station and also that builds the capacity of people to live here, stay here, survive here, start businesses, start social enterprises here. My hope is that we end up having a network of shared spaces and resources that makes us the exemplar of Atlantic Canada.”