Red Cross closing office
Agency will continue services in the area but Harstone House will be going up for sale
The Canadian Red Cross office on Water St. is closing for good April 30, although the agency’s services will carry on in Peterborough.
The Red Cross offers first aid and CPR training, as well as disaster management services.
Helana McKeag, the director of operations for the Red Cross in Eastern Ontario, said those services will continue in Peterborough.
First aid and CPR training are already carried out off-site, she said - not at the offices in a redbrick heritage house on Water St.
As for disaster management, McKeag said that’s now a mobile service – responders go to the scene and they don’t need to report to an office.
“You don’t need a building,” McKeag said. “It’s not the bricks and mortar that do the work – it’s the people.”
The current phone number for the Canadian Red Cross in Peterborough will remain the same, even after the office closes (705-745-8222).
Listings for Red Cross services in Peterborough will still be available online at www.redcross.ca.
Since the 1980s, the Red Cross has owned 565 Water St., at the northwest corner of Water and London streets. The building is also known as Harstone House.
The house was built in 1889 and is a well-preserved example of Queen Anne-style architecture.
It was designed by noted architect William Blackwell (who also designed several other buildings in the city, including the former Peterborough Collegiate and Vocational School).
The house received a heritage designation from city council in 1982.
McKeag said Harstone House will soon be for sale.
It’s not the first Canadian Red Cross office to close in the area lately: the one in Pembroke closed in June and the one in Belleville closed in September.
McKeag said the plan to close the Peterborough offices isn’t meant to save money.
“We’re just delivering services in a different way, now,” she said. “We’re keeping up with the times.”