A councillor for Ashfield-Colborne-Wawanosh has asked Huron County council to help collect data regarding the importance of faith buildings in rural communities.
"Huron County is representing all of rural Ontario in this partnership Ontario Trillium Foundation study. So it's important that we reach out and find every not-for-profit or community group that has a meeting or anything going on in a community faith-building," said Jennifer Miltenburg, the regional research lead for the study.
She said of the 27,000 faith buildings in Canada, 10,000 are slated to close in the next 10 years, and half of those will be in rural Ontario.
Miltenburg said it's critical that they're able to produce data that illustrates the importance of faith buildings in rural communities.
"We know, especially in rural Ontario, faith buildings are way more than about the faith," she said. "They're where the community meets and where they hold all of their events and we need data to prove that these buildings are important, irrespective of the faith."
Miltenburg added the main goal of the study is to measure the impact on rural communities when a faith building is closed.
