The Knowlesville Art and Nature Centre was formed in 2008 with the dream of creating an intergenerational space for families in the Aberdeen & Brighton Parishes. The KAN Centre is housed in a century-old one room church building that was built in 1897 by community spirit and effort.

In memory of Andrea Mills Daugherty (1947 – 2007), mother of Leland Daugherty of South Knowlesville, the Wong-Daugherty family decided to invest in building a community learning centre through the purchase, move and retrofit of the decommissioned Armond Free Will Baptist Church from the Armond Community Group. Leland and Tegan Wong-Daugherty moved the building to its current location at 111 Simms Road in South Knowlesville, New Brunswick and began the big project of revitalizing this historic building.

The initial renovations were completed in November 2008 and a small preschool opened to service families in the area. Outdoor summer camps started in 2009. In 2010 adult programming began including pottery, yoga, sewing, quilting, firecraft and basketmaking.  In 2012 our first teacher was hired to start an community-based grade school program.  Over the years our programs have continued to grow and evolve to include a forest kindergarten, homeschool parent-co-op unto grade 8, art & nature camps, weekly yoga classes and more.

The Knowlesville Art & Nature Centre has also become the heart of a growing rural community with frequent community potlucks, seasonal gatherings and meeting spaces for community collaborations.  This is all part of the journey we envisioned at the start.  One of the seniors in our area shared that when the one-room schools were closed, we lost the heart of the rural villages.  So far we are taking the first tentative steps: bringing back a sense of place and community engagement to our rural home.