Members of B.C.’s Chinese community have donated $51,500 to help rebuild the Lytton Chinese History Museum, which was lost in the wildfires that ravaged much of the village last summer.
“These funds will help in a very real way for us to rebuild an important testament to the Chinese pioneers who helped build British Columbia,” Lorna Fandrich, founder and curator of the museum, said in a news release.
The Canada Chinese Loving Volunteer Association, along with more than two dozen organizations and individuals, helped raise the funds to rebuild the museum by using a series of videos posted to social media.
The campaign attracted attention from a variety of groups and donors, mostly in the Lower Mainland, including The Chinese Benevolent Association of Vancouver, The Canadian Alliance of Chinese Associations, the GoldenTop Financial Services Inc., and the All Harmony Financial Services Ltd.
Donors recently travelled to Lytton to present Fandrich with the $51,500 cheque.
“I am awestruck by the generosity of the Chinese-Canadian community,” Fandrich said.
The Lytton Chinese History Museum was established by Fandrich in 2017 to collect, preserve and display artifacts and photos with the goal of encouraging the contributions made in B.C.’s Interior by thousands of Chinese miners, railway workers, merchants and farmers.
There is no word yet of when the museum will be completed at this time.