Library Square Conference Centre
Lower level rooms
Conveniently located at the Central Library in downtown Vancouver, BC, the Library Square Conference Centre offers more than 12,000 square feet of meeting space suitable for events of any size. If you are interested in renting a space, please visit the Library Square Conference Centre website.
The 3 lower level rooms are accessible through the promenade. They are: Alice MacKay Room, Alma VanDusen Room, and Peter Kaye Room.
Upper floors
As part of the Central Library Expansion, two new floors (levels 8 and 9) are now publicly accessible, and include rooms which can be rented through the Library Square Conference Centre.
Who were Alice MacKay, Alma VanDusen and Peter Kaye?
The meeting rooms of the Vancouver Foundation Conference Centre at Library Square are named after three people important in the history of the Vancouver Foundation.
Alice G. MacKay
"Founder" of the Vancouver Foundation. The history of the Foundation has all the elements of a good legend. There is an unlikely hero - a little known woman by the name of Alice G. MacKay who had saved $1,000 from her secretarial job and whose wish was to do something special for Vancouver particularly for homeless women trapped in a cycle of poverty. There is a benevolent power - in the form of industrial/philanthropist W. J. VanDusen who makes her wish come true. And there is an element of magic - in the transformation of $1000 into $610 million. By 1943, he had overseen the establishment and incorporation of the Vancouver Foundation. However, at the time of Alice MacKay's death in 1944, the Vancouver Foundation was little more than a legal entity with virtually no capital and was therefore a community foundation in name only.
Alma VanDusen
Alma Heal was born in Mitchell, Ontario in 1888, and grew up on the family farm with her four siblings. While a student at the Conservatory of Music in Toronto, Alma met Whitford Julian VanDusen, who was studying electrical engineering at the University of Toronto. They were married in Edmonton on September 25, 1912 and moved to Victoria in 1913, where their daughter Phae was born. After the war, they settled in Vancouver. Alma was very artistic and enjoyed music, painting and gardening. She grew magnificent orchids and also loved to garden and paint outdoors at their farm in Langley with its many animals and beautiful gardens.
With her husband, Alma established several funds at the Vancouver Foundation. Much of the VanDusen's giving was carried out anonymously. One such gift took place in 1970 when they quietly donated $1 million to rescue the old Shaugnessy Golf Course from a real estate development. This donation, together with government funding, permitted 52 acres to be purchased as a garden for the City of Vancouver. The anonymous donors were eventually identified, and the property became the VanDusen Botanical Gardens.
Alma VanDusen died in 1969. A memorial garden exists for her within the VanDusen Gardens.
G. Peter Kaye
Gilbert Peter Kaye was born in Huddersfield, Yorkshire, England in 1910. He graduated from the Institute of Chartered Accountants in 1933, and came to Vancouver as an official with the Yorkshire & Pacific Securities Company Ltd., of which he later became President.
Peter Kaye joined the Vancouver Foundation in 1959 as its first full-time Executive Director, a position he held until his retirement in 1977. The following year, he was appointed Chairman of the Board of Directors, to succeed W.J. VanDusen. He retired as Chairman in 1987, and in recognition of his 27 years of distinguished service, the Board of Directors voted unanimously to appoint him as the Vancouver Foundation's first Honourary Chairman.
In addition to his personal interests in gardening and fishing, Peter Kaye was an active member of many community organizations. Characteristically, just prior to his death in 1987, he made provisions for the establishment of an endowment fund, the G. Peter and Barbara E. Kaye Fund, as an example and encouragement to others. He designated his income to organizations with which he had special ties, including the Boy Scouts Development Fund, The Vancouver Botanical Gardens Association, Shawnigan Lake School Foundation, St. Francis-in-the-Woods Anglican Church Endowment Fund and the Vancouver School of Theology Fund.