Schools

• Between 1858 and 1888, children from Wellington village attended the school at Goodwin’s Corner;
• In 1888, John Barlow, at his own expense, had a new school built in the village; he furnished it and paid to hire a teacher;
• The school stood on the southwest corner of the intersection of Sunset Drive and Commercial Street;
• Acadian and English students attended the same school until 1946 when the French school opened on land now occupied by Le Chez-Nous; and
• Both village schools closed in the early 1970s due to provincial school consolidation.

 

Post Office

• Wellington Station Post Office opened in 1883;
• The village post office operated in private homes and in the Arsenault &Gaudet store until it was moved to the old Nelson Building which once stood on the site of the present-day Post Office;
• In the early years, mail arrived on the evening train from Summerside, was sorted by the Postmaster, and was ready for delivery when residents and rural mail carriers arrived the next morning; and
• The list of Wellington Postmasters includes: Fidèle J. Arsenault, Stanislaus Blanchard, John A. Arsenault, William Barlow, Augustus Gallant, Archie Gaudet, Gordon Gaudet, Ernest Gallant, Fidèle C. Gallant, Robert Gallant, Marcia Arsenault, and Sandra Arsenault.

 

Doctors

• The first resident doctor to settle in the village was Dr. Alfred Joudion, a native of France; an 1880 map of the village shows that he owned a 37-acre parcel of land on the Mont Carmel Road, being the south side of Barlow’s Pond between the corner and Clarke’s Bridge; he died in 1906;
• André Gallant of Saint-Chrysostôme was the village’s second resident doctor, serving in that capacity from 1893 to 1902, and again from 1912 to 1914;
• The third doctor to serve Wellington residents was Dr. Mark Delaney, a native of Havre-aux-Maisons, Îles-de-la-Madeleine; he and his family lived in the village from 1906 to 1940, but spent several years in New Brunswick prior to 1921;
• Raymond Reid was born in Havre-Aubert, Îles-de-la-Madeleine, and studied medicine at Université de Montréal; he arrived in Wellington by train in the middle of a snowstorm in January 1935; and
• In 1937, Dr. Reid married Bernice Gaudet, a registered nurse he’d met on a confinement case; sixteen months later, he developed severe paralysis; though somewhat handicapped by the effects of the disease, he served as the only doctor in much of Central Prince County for many years and continued to see patients in his office until shortly before his death in 1981.

Vanier Centre

• In December 1966, the old Wellington Hall was hauled from its location where Commercial Street meets Sunset Drive to the present site of the Vanier Centre;
• Over the winter months, a new extension was added to house the fire hall, the village library, a kitchen, and office space;
• The original Vanier Centre, named in honour of Governor General Georges P. Vanier who had passed away earlier in the year,was opened on July 8, 1967 by Premier Alex B. Campbell; and
• The present Vanier Centre opened in 2010.

Royal Canadian Legion

• Branch #17 was organized in 1946 with Cyrus E. (Gil) Gallant, veteran of World War I, as President;
• The Legion was originally located in the village hall; and
• Severalhalls were built and renovated near the current site before the new Legion Home was opened officially in 1982.

 

Fire Department

• The first Fire Brigade was formed in 1941; the Brigade’s equipment consisted of a four-cylinder engine and water pump mounted on wheels; a small building was put up on Sunset Drive, at the northwest corner of the community park on the former Laurindaand Alice Gallant homestead, to house the engine and pump;
• Following the disastrous February 1958 fire, the Wellington Fire Department was organized; its first fire hall was a 20 by 30 foot building that stood north of the present Boys and Girls Club;
• The second fire hall, a two-bay structure, was built as part of the Vanier Centre in 1967;
• The list of Fire Chiefs includes Cédric Arsenault (1959-1970); Edmond Cormier (1970-1980); Adolphe Richard (1980-1982); Leonard Gallant (1982-1983); Melvin Arsenault (1983-2000); Leon Perry (2000-2003); Terry McNeill (2003-2006); Terry Arsenault (2006-2008); Alan Doucette (2008-2011); Chris Arsenault (2011-2014); and James Ryan (2014 to present); and
• The present fire hall opened in 2000.

Wellington Fire Department in 2017

Boys and Girls Club

• Founded in 1967 with the motto “Character Building for Citizenship”; joined the National Boys and Girls Club in 1969;
• The first clubhouse, formerly part of the old Barlow homestead, opened in 1973;
• The Club offers a Before and After School Program, and a Summer Program; facilities include a music room, large kitchen, theatre room, Lego room, video game room, craft room, sports room, mini-gym room, homework room, paved hockey rink with portable tennis nets, basketball nets, green space for soccer, trails, sandbox, tire park, garden area and a paved race track;and
• The Club has 80 members and serves the youth of the Évangéline area.

 

Access PEI

• The Wellington Regional Services Centre opened for business in 1982 and was first located on the lower floor of the Évangéline Health Centre, the former French School; and
• Staff of the centre, now known as Access PEI, are responsible for coordinating the delivery of Provincial Government services in French and English to people living in the Évangéline Region.

Collège de l’Île

• The Sociétééducative de l’Île-du-Prince-Édouard was founded in 1993 by the Société Saint-Thomas d’Aquin and offered its first adult training programs in 1994;
• From 1994 to 2006, it operated in association with Nova Scotia’s Collège de l’Acadie;
• The province’s only French-language post-secondary institution became the Collège de l’Île in 2008; and
• It operates adult training centres in Wellington, Deblois and Charlottetown.

 

RDÉE Prince Edward Island

• RDÉE Prince Edward Island Inc. is the provincial francophone economic development council;
• It began in 2000 as an arm of the BaieAcadienne Development Corporation and has operated as an independent non-profit corporation since 2010;
• Its mission is “to contribute actively to entrepreneurial and community economic development within the Acadian and francophone community of Prince Edward Island, while contributing to the economic development of the province”;
• Its head office is located in the Community Business Centre with a satellite office in Charlottetown; and
• The Acadian and Francophone Chamber of Commerce operates as a sub-committee of RDÉE PEI.

Centre de santé Évangéline

• The Évangéline Health Centre Coop was formed in 1977 for the purpose of establishing a community health centre in the former French School;
• Its original mission was to procure the services of a physician and a dentist in the village on a part-time basis;
• By the late 1990s, the Coop offered the services of one dentist, two family physicians, a speech pathologist, a public health nurse, and a psychologist; the centre focused on prevention and health maintenance;
• In 2003, services formerly offered by the Coop were taken over by the provincial government; and
• Today, the Évangéline Health Centre, located in the Community Business Centre, is part of the East Prince Primary Care Network, a team of health care professionals including family physicians, nurse practitioners, registered nurses, diabetes educators, licensed practical nurses, and clerical staff.

Centre Cap enfants

• The Centre Cap enfantswas created in 1995 and is supported in its operationthrough financial assistance provided by the Public Health Agency of Canada;
• A non-profit organization, Cap enfants offers a variety of services to children, parents, and future parents of Acadian and francophone families; and
• In 2016-2017, 218 children participated in programs in the Évangéline Region; 141 parents participated in programs during the same period.

 

Coopérative d’hébergement Le Bel Âge

• Formed in 2005 in order to build apartment units for seniors and limited income families in the Évangéline Region;
• Consists of eight one-bedroom and six two-bedroom units, plus common areas;
• Le Bel Âge’s target clientele is 50-and-over residents of the Évangéline Region; and
• The complex was built on land purchased from the late Laurinda Gallant; Le Bel Âge donated a portion of the land for theLaurindaand Alice Gallant Community Park.

 

Coopérative Le Chez-Nous

• This community care facility opened in 1993 on land formerly occupied by the Wellington French School;
• There have been two expansions since then, the most recent one being in 2014, when 12 beds were added, bringing the total number of beds to 47;
• The organization offers housing services to seniors, as well as meals and other forms of support to independent living at an affordable price; Le Chez-Nous also accommodates special needs persons; and
• General Manager Edgar Arsenault supervises a staff of 30.