Mennonite Heritage Village gala sees highest attendance record

Mennonite Heritage Village gala on June 27 saw the highest attendance record in recent years, which executive director Robert Goertzen said was due to the speaker, the auction, and general support for the museum.

“We had a full room of guests and we had a wide variety of program items, including fantastic music and an entertaining auction of photography art and wonderful keynote speaker, the Honourable Jake Epp. There was something for everybody and everyone came away enjoying the evening.”

About 150 people came to the event with the amount raised going towards the museum’s $1.6 million budget. The total hadn’t been tallied by press time.

Some of the money raised that evening came from the live auction of photos from the archival collection of photographers Heinrich D. Fast and Johann E. Funk, which depicted Mennonite life in the late 19th century and early 20th century.

The theme for the evening was remembering the past and embracing our future. Guest speaker Jake Epp shared his past of having grown up in Steinbach where his house used to stand between the location of the former Derksen Printers office and where Chicken Chef is located. He also talked about his time as a politician.

“I was a city councillor at 32 years old and the first debate was how much money to give to the museum, and 60 years later you’re still having that debate,” joked Epp.

Epp travelled nationally and internationally during his time as the Provencher MP (1972-1993) in the Conservative government. He shared many memories, but he said he learned four lessons: be good at what you do, get an education, learn from others, and have heroes.

“I really admired his emphasis on valuing what we learn as children,” said Goertzen. “His value of education and the importance that education has around the world in providing a foundation for society and for people to improve their own lot. I also recognize that he said we all need to have heroes, we need to have people we look up to and we can do that for others as well, those were two take aways I took from that (speech).”

The museum’s curator Andrea Klassen shared the projects the museum completed in the past, including repouring the foundation of the printery, rethatching the roof and mould remediation of the Chortitz Housebarn, and repainting the Livery Barn Restaurant. Goertzen said this year more repairs will be done in the village and that next year fundraising will start to update the Gerhard Ens Gallery.

“This was our first main fundraiser and we’re looking forward to engaging with our supporters and the public for the rest of the summer as well, as we embark on other fundraisers including the car show coming up on July 26 and the cycling Peace Trek on Aug. 16 and the Tractor Drive on Sept. 6,” he said.

Klassen noted there are 17,000 items in the museum’s collection and that the goal of the curatorial office was to digitize the collection and make it available to the public.