Abbotsford – Every year Heritage BC receives nominations of projects and people across the province who have made an impact on heritage stewardship and conservation. This year, 22 recipients were recognized in five categories. Among the recipients of this year’s award were Travis Thuro and Ian Froese of Thuro Construction & Design, who worked with staff from Heritage Abbotsford Society to restore Abbotsford’s historic South Poplar schoolhouse.
At the May 2nd Heritage BC awards reception in Nelson, the restoration team was awarded an Outstanding award in the Conservation category.
Heritage Abbotsford Society is the registered charity which operates Trethewey House Heritage Site under a fee-for-service agreement with the City of Abbotsford. “Travis and Ian demonstrated excellence through their hard work” says Heritage Abbotsford’s Executive Director Christina Reid. “Training and education is an integral part of the Society’s Applied Heritage Preservation program. What was so different about this process was the level of care Travis and Ian took to honour the history of the building. They really went above and beyond, made it personal.”
The Heritage Abbotsford Society received funding to restore the building under the Unique Heritage Infrastructure stream of the Community Economic Recovery Infrastructure Program (CERIP) in 2021. Since its founding in the 1960s, the Society (previously the MSA Museum Society) has identified, reviewed and recorded a number of older buildings in need of both restoration and protection. “The building itself is culturally significant, and we wanted to support the owner, the Abbotsford School District, in preserving it” says Reid. She explains that the project was designed to serve as an economic stimulus package for trades. “That’s where Thuro Construction came into the picture. Travis and Ian connected with alumni and helped us build context and came up with elegant solutions to some tricky challenges in the process.”
