Upcoming Events with FOFS-click here

City of Burlington Best Awards acceptance speech RCTD 5 9 18

Eleanor McMahon, MPP and Blair Lancaster, Councillor, City of Burlington presented the
Ontario Trillium Grant cheque to Ron, President FOFS and Brian, Treasurer FOFS which is designated for the wheelchair accessibility work at the station.

RTO/ETO District 15/Halton of the Retired Teachers of Ontario has announced approval of a grant application by Friends of Freeman Station (FOFS) to fund a computer control system for its historic model railway educational exhibit.  The money will be used to purchase the central “brains” of a planned interactive, museum-quality model railway diorama depicting life in the village of Freeman (now part of Burlington) in the early 1900’s.  Additional details at freemanstation.ca/llrd/.

If you have extra 2X4 lumber, 4X8 sheets of drywall, insulation materials, or fasteners left over from a project, we would be delighted to receive them for finishing the lower level of the Station.  Your donations are 100% tax deductible.   Call 905-334-0272 or email info@freemanstation.ca and we’ll coordinate delivery.

To date, more than 6,000 hours of volunteer labour have gone into the project, and more than $ 390,000 in cash and corporate/ private donations and pledges has been raised. On the Station’s Lower Level, we’re planning to install a computer-driven, museum-quality interactive diorama depicting life in the hamlet of Freeman, which is now part of Burlington, in the early Twentieth Century.

We’re looking for volunteers to join the building restoration project and/or the diorama construction project. Depending on your interests, there are many opportunities for you to get involved in this historic legacy.

Volunteer opportunities:

• Curriculum development- writing teacher material for class visits

• Bricklaying and carpentry

• Accounting – simple, spread sheet, income & expenditures

• Photography – amateur (digital!)

• Computer – correspondence, spreadsheet data input and management

• Web site – assistant Web master using WordPress (we’ll teach you)

• Email database – adding/editing contact information

• Gardening – grounds maintenance, flower beds, mowing, weeding

• Community relations – arranging and staffing public appearance events

• Publicity – news stories and media relations

• Model railroading – garden scale design, layout, and operation

• Steam boiler certification – live steam locomotive operation

• Videography – video documentation and editing

• Artistry – scene and mural painting

• Docents – volunteer staffing to receive and brief the public

• Artifact management – logging, documenting, photographing, data entry

To any extent that you can help, please email us — info@freemanstation.ca — and let us know your interest.

We’ve been working with local families to capture their stories  about life in the village of Freeman and early Burlington.  The first of these are now published under the “Families of Freeman/Stories” link above (or click here) and include “A.D. McMillan, Fruit and Vegetable Grower,” “Memories of Freeman,” “The Freeman Family and the village of Freeman,” “The Smith Family (Smith’s Funeral Home),” and the life story of “Theo Bullock.”  There are many more family histories and anecdotes which could be added to this collection, and we’d very much like to hear from you, to add your family’s memories.  Just drop us a note to info@freemanstation.ca and we’ll work out the details.

Christmas came early to the Station, as the masons from Thorstone — including Joel Thorstone and his staff — Colin, Mark and Mitchell — have now completed the work of re-installing the Whinstone facade across the front of the Station.  Work proceeded notwithstanding the cold weather and they finished in five days.  Beautiful job, guys.  We are thrilled to see the result!