Financial challenges

As a young non-profit organization, the Corporation du Moulin Légaré (CML) had trouble securing sufficient, regular funding, particularly during its first two decades. At that time, its main sources of income were the proceeds from flour sales and tours of the mill. The City of Saint-Eustache provided an annual grant, which helped keep the mill running. However, things did not always go smoothly.

Along with volunteers Kevin Mooney, Victor Rioux, Germain Lalonde and Jean-Pierre Lefebvre, former chairs Ernest Labelle and Léon Tremblay talk about the financing difficulties the CML experienced.

View this video with a transcript: The financial challenges faced by the Corporation du Moulin Légaré

Volunteers and board members had to come up with imaginative solutions to develop new sources of income. No strategy for increasing flour sales was rejected: door-to-door selling, soliciting local restaurants and businesses, making galettes de sarrasin (buckwheat crêpes) at all the regional events that invited the CML to participate.

An article published in the L’Éveil newspaper about La Soirée du sarrasin, a fundraising event organized by the CML.

Board members run flour sales table at Place St-Eustache Shopping Mall in December 1997. Left to right: Huguette Désormeaux, Ernest Labelle, Sylvie Charrette and Fernand Samoisette.

Volunteers talk about the fun they have had and the effort it took to attend all those fairs selling the mill’s products and promoting them to the general public.

View this video with a transcript: Financing the operation of the mill through the sale of crêpes and flour

In the 2000s, the board decided to keep the mill open year round, even in the winter. That meant flour could be sold continuously, and it allowed the mill to build and maintain relationships with regular customers and stabilize its revenue.