Our Lady of Mercy Church on the Port au Port Peninsula has won the National Trust of Canada’s Next Great Save Competition.
With the win comes a prize of $50,000 to help with the restoration and preservation of the historic building, which turns 100 years old next year.
Our Lady of Mercy Heritage Committee Chair Joanne Rose says they are “ecstatic” to have won.
She says voting started off slow, but then support started to build. In the end, they won the contest with about 9,000 votes more than the second-place winner.
Rose says support came from all over the world.
She says there was a woman originally from Port au Port, now living in Honolulu, Hawaii was voting every day. She says they were flooded with similar stories of, for example, people living in France with connections to the province who were voting.
With the money, Rose says there are several key areas they want to focus on.
She says this particular project is called The Painted Lady. They want to replace the wooden clapboard on the outside and give it a fresh coat of paint. According to Rose, the church is between 80 to 115 feet tall, and just to rent a lift to do the work will cost about $45,000.