High tea and high fashion is coming to Gravelbourg. The Friends of the Gravelbourg Convent will be holding a Spring Tea and Fashion Show at the former Convent of Jesus and Mary located at 7 Athabasca Street in Gravelbourg on Saturday, April 15 from 2 to 4 p.m.
The event includes the traditional ritual of high tea combined with a showing of formal and other fashions. Local and regional businesses such as This and That Nicknacks, Fifth Avenue Jewelers, Optical Images and Styles, along with others, have contributed to the runway designs.
Through this event, the Friends of the Convent are looking to raise funds as well as awareness to preserve the historic convent, stated Toos Giesen-Stefiuk, one of the Friends board members and organizers of the event. She is also a member of Gravelbourg town council.
The Friends of the Convent is a group of people who have been working for the past four years for the preservation of the chapel and the good use of the building, she added.
The group would like to keep the chapel located in the north wing open for community events. Giesen-Stefiuk explained that a feasibility study was carried out to explore uses for the remaining space in the building for other purposes. One proposal has suggested developing the building for seniors housing. A meeting will be held in later in April for the input from the community.
The former Convent of Jesus and Mary is a municipal and national heritage property in the Town of Gravelbourg. The building features a large four-storey brick-and-Tyndall Stone structure built between 1917 and 1918. It is linked by rotundas to two three-storey wings built between 1926 and 1927. The building features 90,000 square feet of space on four floors and a basement.
Dedicated to youth education, the religious community of the Sisters of Jesus and Mary were founded in 1816 in Lyon, France. The first Canadian foundation was set up in 1855 in St. Joseph de Levis, Quebec.
Father Gravel’s long-time aspiration had been to bring this order to Gravelbourg as teachers. Finally in 1915, they arrived to replace the lay teachers who had been teaching at the public school since 1908. The sisters taught at the little chapel house until they moved into the newly-built convent on August 3, 1918.
After 55 years, the Sisters sold the Convent to the Gravelbourg School Board in 1970. The Sisters of Jesus and Mary left Gravelbourg on December 13, 2000 after 85 years. The school then moved into the building. Since the fall of 2016, the elementary school students have attended class at the new school. The school board sold the building to the town of Gravelbourg.
The chapel currently holds a collection of reproduction paintings of masters of the renaissance period and a statue of the Holy Mother made in Italy.
