RECAP: Grand Opening

We can hardly believe it’s been three weeks since our official Grand Opening!

Over 300 people attended the big event and another 200 passed through during launch week. In case you missed it, here is our ‘in the time it takes to brew a pot of coffee’ recap.

We had a market that included Boyle Street Community Services - if you didn’t already know they have a variety of social enterprises including their newest addition, hiregood.ca. Anthony at Your Service also joined us to inform attendees about their premium delivery service that employs people with intellectual disabilities and the Office of Sustainability

educated about their food security initiatives and sampled honey (who doesn’t love honey!) Earth Group shared their story and products in our market and generously donated water for the event.

Our program was hosted by Leo and Amor, our leaders in building and operating the Social Innovation Institute and Roundhouse respectively. We were honoured to receive a blessing from Elder Francis Whiskeyjack. The crowd received greetings from MacEwan President Dr. Deborah Saucier, the Honourable Marlin Schmidt and Councillor Scott McKeen.

Lakota Tootoosis, who has performed around the world, delivered an engaging hoop dance to conclude the program and kick-off Roundhouse’s journey.

We were proud to serve all vegetarian food to reduce our environmental footprint. There was live music flowing through the space while attendees chose to tour, chat or decorate cookies. We’re so thankful for the MacEwan Conference and Event Services team for helping us put together this milestone event and to our volunteers for helping to share our story and make everyone feel welcome!

Following our grand opening we hosted 16 events in eight days, which was super busy and absolutely worth it. We met so many new changemakers and continued the good vibes through the week. We’d like to say thank you to every launch week facilitator that donated their time so we could offer sessions free of charge, as well as our partners Urban Matters and CreativeMornings for planning two fantastic events as part of our lineup.

Life is busy, we know that first hand! If you missed our grand opening and launch week, we invite you to stay up to speed on upcoming events or register for a tour at roundhouse.net/events!