Canfor is opening its wallet a little wider for Vavenby, a community where it closed down a sawmill in 2019.

Area director Carol Schaffer says the company has given Vavenby a $100,000 legacy fund, instead of its initial plan to provide $25,000.

Schaffer had initially asked for $200,000 as a legacy fund from Canfor.

“We’re satisfied with $100,000, because it’s $75,000 more than they were giving us. And the reason it happened is because Canfor says the increase in lumber prices has allowed them to give us more money.”

Schaffer says $25,000 will be spent on renovations to the local fire department. “The original part of the fire department was built with logs which are deteriorating, so we would like to redo that extension. It will require more than $25,000, but $25,000 is a good start.”

The other $75,000 will be for land planning for a new water filtration system.

“It’s about $5 million dollars to put a water filtration system in. But this part will take the land and transfer it into the (Thompson Nicola Regional District’s) name. And that’s great for us, because otherwise we’d have to purchase land somewhere. And where it’s going to be is the ideal spot.”

Schaffer says a businessman from Vanderhoof has recently purchased the former mill property, and has donated 1.6 acres of land to the TNRD to use for the water filtration system.

Canfor took over the Vavenby mill in 2004, operating it for 15 years until shutting it down in 2019. The mill had been in operation on McCorvie Road since 1952.