The Reach Gallery Museum and Columbia Kitchen Cabinets Ltd. Partnership Summary

The Reach Gallery Museum Abbotsford (The Reach) and Columbia Kitchen Cabinets Ltd. (Columbia Kitchen) both value family, heritage and their community. Columbia Kitchen had a 44 year business building relationship in the community and a relationship with The Reach for 6 years. Thanks to this, The Reach was able to leverage the artsvest program and propose a meaningful and legacy-building sponsorship partnership to Columbia Kitchen Cabinets.

The Reach’s By Land and Sea exhibition involved programming by a Fraser Valley born artist, Marian Penner Bancroft, whose works investigate her Mennonite family history and relationship to landscape from a narrative of migration and forced relocation. Columbia Kitchen was founded by a Mennonite immigrant with family history in Southern Russia. For more than 45 years (they celebrated their 45th anniversary in 2015), Columbia Kitchens continues to hire, train and provide business opportunities to Mennonite immigrants or their descendants, along with immigrants of other ethnicities and residents. The company gives back with funding and volunteers to individuals and communities in third world countries, and in more recent years, has started to invest more in the Fraser Valley community where their employees and families reside.

The partnership between The Reach and Columbia Kitchen was the perfect fit, as the By Land and Sea exhibition and its sponsorship served to showcase and progress both organizations’ missions and values.