After weeks of voting from diligent supporters, the Hope Station House took home third place and $5,000 in the “Next Great Save” competition.
Thanks to the support and efforts of the community, the Station House received 22,374 votes garnering them third out of the competition’s 10 finalists and a prize of $5,000.
The Tashme Historical Society, who entered the Station House into the contest, says they are grateful to the community’s dedication in seeing the Station House win — even with website crashes, and glitches, that made voting online difficult at times.
“I want to thank everyone,” said Ryan Ellan, the president of the Tashme Historical Society. “It was a long campaign. It was 35 days and the community went over and above. It was a bit of a grind constantly reminding people to vote and we had a tremendous amount of locals who were constantly reminding everyone else to vote on Facebook.
“So, it was a lot of work put in by a lot of people.”
Ellan says he and the rest of Tashme Historical Society are thankful towards everyone, especially the businesses, that went “over and above” in assisting them during the competition.
In particular, the society would like to give a special thanks to: The District of Hope and Mayor Victor Smith, the Hope Standard, the Coalition for the Preservation of the Hope Station House (CPHSH), Barry Stewart, Hope Rona - FVBS, Hope Lordco, HMI Skatepark, and Washtub Launderette.
During the competition, these businesses advertised for and set up voting stations to encourage people to vote for the Station House. Voting took place from Jan. 20 until Feb. 23, and people voted online everyday to determine this year’s “Next Great Save” winner. Run by the National Trust for Canada, the top prize was $50,000 with second place having a prize of $10,000.
First place went to the Duncan Train Station, with 76, 560 votes, and second place went to the La Vieille Maison, with 52, 775 votes. In total, the ten finalists received over 200,000 votes during this competition.
According to Ellan, the money will still go towards keeping the project’s heritage architect and engineer that they’ve hired.
The issue of preserving the Station House has been an ongoing battle for many years. It reached a head in 2020 when the District indicated their plans to demolish it.
Following their announcement, a dedicated group of Hope citizens protested the decision and began to spearhead the movement to “save” the Station House.
At this time, the society saw the significance of the Station House, due to the history that the Japanese-Canadian community has with it, and offered to work with the District to buy and relocate it.
As of Nov. 4, 2022, Tashme Historical Society are the owners of the Station House.
On a more personal note, Ellan, who is grateful that the Station House placed so high despite being up against notable contenders throughout the country, says he feels humbled by the amount of votes the Station House received.
“My personal goal was to reach that 22,140, which we did. So, that was a very symbolic goal and personal goal for me,” Ellan said. “Symbolically or spiritually, whatever you want to call it, to just get over 22,000 votes, it was almost meant to be like that.
“It’s truly amazing. For the company that we were in, in a national wide contest competing with other communities sometimes other provinces that had 10 times the population of Hope, we’re pretty proud.”
@KemoneMoodley
kemone.moodley@hopestandard.com
Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.