Harmony Featured in the Sun Times today

Harmony Centre is Like a Gift that Keeps on Giving

Author of the article: Scott Dunn

Published Mar 19, 2025 

It’s been about a dozen years since the former Knox United Church, an unused, handsome 19th-century brick building in downtown Owen Sound, was given an important new purpose.

Its dwindling parish had left to join the Division Street congregation, forming Georgian Shores United Church. One developer wanted to convert Knox into condos, using the basement for parking. Another had salvage and demolition in mind.

But church leaders favoured a third option and sold the building to a not-for-profit corporation called Harmony Centre Owen Sound, in 2012. The corporation was founded by Frank and Leigh Greaves to preserve a heritage building for the community’s ongoing use.

They provided the then-nine-member non-profit board with a private mortgage at favourable rates, when no bank financing could be obtained, Leigh Greaves said in an interview. She said Community Foundation Grey Bruce holds the mortgage now.

“I personally think it’s a wonderful thing to invest locally in your community because you set your own community up for success,” she said. “Keeping your money as local as possible is a wonderful thing.”

Greaves said without Harmony Centre, many organizations would struggle to find a place to do their work. Many who would want to try to offer a class wouldn’t find a space elsewhere like at Harmony Centre, and arts groups would struggle to find similar rehearsal and performance space, she said.

The couple originally pursued the now-152-year-old Knox building to provide Owen Sound Hunger and Relief Effort soup kitchen a home, Greaves said. OSHaRE remained there for several years and today continues to provide free meals, no questions asked, to homeless people and others struggling, in other quarters downtown.

Knox, a Presbyterian church at the time, was host for the 50th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in 1924, when congregations voted to combine most Presbyterian, Methodist and Congregationalist churches in Canada to create what became the United Church of Canada.

Knox’s history dates back to 1846 but in 1873 the main section of the current Knox building was completed, opened and dedicated. It was enlarged in 1886 and at that time was described in a local newspaper as “the most attractive and capacious Christian temple in Owen Sound,” a church history on Georgian Shores’s website says.

Today, Harmony Centre has 30,000 to 40,000 visits per year, sometimes more, Greaves said. It offers subsidized rents to some and competitive market rents for others, depending on the use.

“We saw a need like so many in the community,” she said. The new role for the old church building lined up with Frank’s interest in music, the symphony and the arts along with Leigh’s passion for old buildings and supporting downtown.

“I think it’s actually fulfilling our aspirations. We want that building to be there for the community to use for pretty much whatever it needs at whatever time,” she said.

Today, recurring classes and other gatherings there include an introduction to American sign language, a community song circle, lady solo dancing, Alcoholics Anonymous, tai chi, drumming, square dancing, Queen’s Bush Bluegrass, salsa dancing, community meditation and yoga.

“It’s very exciting to see groups come forward and activities come forward and partnerships develop,” Greaves said. “So it’s serving a purpose, it’s being useful, it’s bringing people together and that’s all we could ask for.”

The centre’s mandate is to provide the community with “accessible and affordable spaces to share, create, educate, and perform.” It has a 700-seat auditorium, a 160-seat commons area, a 190-seat lower hall with kitchen and banquet facilities, and numerous smaller lofts and studios.

Greaves said Harmony Centre has never run a deficit, even through the COVID-19 pandemic. There are discounted community rates for not-for-profits and community groups that are doing community work. But the space also is available to the community, business and municipalities at market rates or better, she said.

“So the regular rates subsidize the not-for-profit rates. And because we are run by a volunteer board and we have a hundred volunteers helping us, we can keep these rates low and provide subsidies.”

Jeff Elie, Harmony Centre’s volunteer board chair, said the centre has about 150 bookings a month. Many are weekly events like the dance and yoga classes. There are also special events, weekly and monthly.

“Harmony Centre is a perfect example of a success story of how a small community can do something and it becomes self-perpetuating,” he said. Rather than scattered across the community, groups and individuals have found a home at Harmony Centre, he said.

“So when you walk in, it’s a workplace, there’s music, there’s meetings there’s dance: practically every night there’s contra dancing, there’s square dancing, there’s ballroom dancing, these are all different groups.”

There are around a dozen studios for rent. There’s some dedicated office space for not-for-profit groups, performance spaces and meeting spaces. Ontario Students Against Impaired Driving, administration for Save ‘n Sound and Georgian Bay Folk Society call it home. Artists rent studios, one space is used for voice lessons, there’s a video production company, mental health counselling for first responders, a home and business cleaning company and more in the centre.

“It’s continually evolving as a social enterprise, as an organization that feeds other organizations,” Elie said. And the board members include Harmony Centre renters, residents and community leaders who have a stake in the centre. “So the board itself is charged with all this energy and vitality from the people who we serve. And so it’s been an organic growth . . . and what we do has kind of taken on a life of its own,” Elie said.

“These days, with what’s going on, it’s important for everybody to pull together as a community and feel like we’re on the same team — especially now. And that’s what Harmony Centre does.”

The 11-member volunteer board is taking the centre beyond a venue for classes, concerts and all-candidates meetings. It’s organizing its first small municipalities conference on March 29, focused on local problems, especially in the downtown, Greaves said. “We just said somebody must be doing something that works somewhere. Why don’t we see? . . . We don’t want to focus on the problem, we know what the problems are. We want to focus on solutions.”

Elie said the idea builds on Changemaker Pubs, held once or twice a year at Harmony Centre. Charity groups and non-profits come in to share what they’re doing in brief presentations and then they all socialize. “And these are the change makers in our community who we feel deserve a chance to talk about what they’re doing and network with other people,” Elie said. “We have live music and there’s breaks. It’s a really fabulous thing.”

Leigh still sits on the board of directors and Frank, a retired radiologist, leads a Tuesday work crew of retired medical folks who do Harmony Centre repairs and maintenance.

“It’s a wonderful facility that represents tremendous capacity for this community,” Leigh said. “So our goal is to maintain and improve that facility, constantly.” The board has put in a new heating and cooling system, windows, and the flooring is next.

“People, they call it a hub, an incubator. That building represents capacity for this community that was built by the community over 100 and some-odd years. So we are maintaining that and we are improving it.”

Lori Pyne will be addressing Harmony Centre’s Small Communities Solutions Conference on the topic of Reframing Community Relationships. Lori has worked as a socially responsible leader, convenor, and community builder.

She currently is the Executive Director at Squamish Helping Hands Society, having worked for over a decade at Whistler Community Services Society. She has managed multiple projects, while maintaining passion and integrity for the impact that she has on her surroundings. 

Lori enjoys creating strategic perspectives while generating positive opportunities and outcomes for her staff, clients, and family. She currently collaborates on community housing solutions around the Squamish Community Housing Society board table with a lens for accountability, balance and commitment. Her term on the Vantage Point Board of Directors, Transforming BC’s Non Profits, is where she learned the importance of diverse relationship building and the importance of transparent governance. 

Gwen Patrick will be sharing her experience in holistic economic development at Harmony Centre’s Small Communities Solutions conference with her presentation: Economic Nutrition for the Place We Live. Gwen is the Financial Innovation Lead at the Shorefast Institute on Fogo Island, overseeing program execution and financial and economic toolset development.

Like Harmony Centre, the Shorefast Institute is a social enterprise, in fact one of Canada’s largest, working to build economic and cultural resilience on Fogo Island, a 400 year-old outport fishing community critically impacted by the decline of the cod fishery and the related moratorium established in 1992.

She grew up on Salt Spring Island, BC, where she founded the Foundation of Youth, a youth advisory committee of the Salt Spring Island Foundation. While earning her Bachelor of Commerce at Queen’s University, she received the Kehoe Fellowship, enabling her to intern with Shorefast on Fogo Island. After graduation, she obtained her CPA designation and worked in public accounting at a Big Four firm before returning to Shorefast.

For more information on the Small Communities Solutions Conference, click here.

The Small Communities Solutions Conference being held at Harmony Centre on March 29 will learn of a pilot project undertaken by the Grey Bruce Public Health Unit. Heidi Lucas will outline the project which uses Drug Test Strips as an aid in Harm Reduction. Harm Reduction is part of a spectrum of services that supports people to achieve optimal health and wellbeing as they navigate their journey with substance use.

Heidi is a public health nurse on the GBPH Harm Reduction Team and has experience in harm reduction in urban and rural settings and enjoys opportunities to work directly with clients, as well as on population-level initiatives.

For more information on Harmony Centre’s Small Communities Solutions Conference click here.

Harmony Centre’s Small Communities Solutions Conference will hear from Craig Ambrose, Chief of Owen Sound Police Services, on the role of policing in solutions for small communities. His experience will inform his talk entitled “What we have tried isn’t working… so how do we try to balance our approach”

Craig Ambrose grew up, worked, and raised his family in rural Waterloo Region before moving to Grey County and being appointed Chief of Police in January 2019.  He started his policing career over 35 years ago with the Waterloo Regional Police Service.  He held progressively more responsible duties throughout Waterloo Region including assignments in general patrol, undercover work, drug enforcement, homicide, Professional Standards, public order, incident command and criminal intelligence. He gained valuable supervisory experience in all of those areas and culminated in running patrol operations for the city of Waterloo and the supervision of all investigative units as the Inspector and Acting Superintendent of the Investigative Services Division. 

Chief Ambrose sits on both the OACP Community Safety and Crime Prevention and CACP Information Communication and Technology committees. Aside from the daily activities of running a police service, the Chief also oversees the Owen Sound Emergency Communications Centre, a service that provides dispatch communications and IT support to over 60 police and fire services throughout Ontario.

More on Harmony Centre’s Small Communities Solutions Conference click here.

Stuart Reid is confirmed as a speaker for Harmony Centre’s Small Communities Solutions Conference coming up on March 29. His talk will be: Helping Youth in Transition: Rent Supplements Keep Youths Housed.

This program addresses the needs of youth, 16 to 24 years of age, facing homelessness in Grey Bruce, through a rent supplement along with counselling and mentoring to ensure best outcomes.

Over the past year, the project has offered a monthly rent supplement to the first cohort of 12 youth from the By-Names list. By-Name Lists allow communities to know every person experiencing homelessness by name and facilitate efficient decisions around how best to refer housing resources.

YMCA Housing Services delivers the supplement as well as wrap around services, mentoring, and transitional supports that have the potential to significantly change the life trajectory of participants. The rent supplement adds to the supports available from the associated County, meaning that youth will have more money in their pockets, and sovereignty over their situation and finances.

The project aims to lend dignity and autonomy to youth in transition. Our model will track the impact of this supplement and will reflect the changes in life trajectory of the 12+ individuals engaged in the effort.

The program received originating support from the Laidlaw family and the Laidlaw Foundation, the Joseph & Marilyn Hunt Fund, and the Next25 Fund, Project partners include CFGB, United Way of Bruce Grey, Grey Bruce Poverty Task Force, YMCA of Owen Sound Bruce Grey, private donors, and other foundations.

Stuart Reid joined the community philanthropy movement in 2016 as Executive Director of Community Foundation Grey Bruce. A graduate of York University in Toronto, he has over 30 years of leadership experience in Canadian art museums and the non-profit sector. As a passionate advocate for community wellbeing, he is an active volunteer and a board member for the Canadian Crafts Federation. Stuart is an award-winning writer, a certified yoga instructor, and loves living near the shores of Georgian Bay in Annan, Ontario.

More on Harmony Centre’s Small Communities Solutions Conference click here.

Harmony Centre is organizing a gathering of minds intended be a launchpad for workable solutions to some of the most difficult issues facing small towns today.

Who Should Attend Harmony Centre’s Small Town Solutions Conference:

• Local Government Officials: Mayors, council members, city planners, and rural development officers.
• Community Leaders: Leaders of local organizations, small business owners, educators, and non-profit representatives.
• Residents: Active community members who are involved in grassroots movements and local initiatives.
• Experts: Urban planners, economists, environmentalists, and technology innovators.

Get your ticket by February 15 and receive 20 per cent off the $50 registration fee!

Click here to register today!

Fantastic article in the winter issue of On the Bay Magazine highlighting the significant contribution Harmony Centre makes to the Owen Sound Arts Community. Two Harmony’s Residents, Summerfolk and visual artist Kristine Moran are featured.

Read the full story here.

Welcome to Down North Garlic Co. now using the Harmony Centre kitchen to prepare items for sale at farmers markets across the county.

Andrew Russel, the owner and grower of Down North says “our goal is to grow and provide a healthy and high-quality local garlic for our customers and community with a no waste mindset. Although not every bulb of garlic is picture perfect and acceptable for store shelves, we have created the expectation that “no healthy clove is left behind!” Broken cloves, or bulbs with little skin can still be used for creating by-products in our lineup such as powders, black garlic cloves, peeled garlic, oils, flakes and much, much more! ” This is where Harmony Centre comes in. Down North is able to process these items for sale to the public in our approved commercial kitchen.

Local painting contractor Rob Hassard was delighted when he was invited to teach an Owen Sound District Secondary School class how to paint a room. But he wanted to do it out in the field, not in a classroom. So, he put out the call, and Harmony Centre responded.

“Harmony Centre is a perfect place to teach a group to paint because it’s a charity, and this is a great way of giving back to the community in a very practical way,” he says.

Harmony Centre also has an abundance of rooms, and the Board Room was selected for the project because of its manageable size.

Hassard is excited about the project because he believes that painting is an ability that people carry with them wherever they go. “At some point in your life you’re going to have to paint a room,” he says. “If you have some basic knowledge about how it’s done, then you’re ahead of the game.”

Instruction will be provided on how to select paint, make minor repairs, prepare surfaces for painting, masking, and various techniques for applying paint.

“I hope this will inspire some young people and give them the confidence to take on projects of their own,” Hassard says.

But Rob also believes that painting is a transferable life skill that also teaches about setting goals, problem solving, and patience.

“Everything in life is a process,” he says. “Learn the process – learn to trust it – and you’re all set.”