Francophone Fridays: Charlottetown coffee shop starts weekly French gathering

Timothy's offers a space for French speakers around noon each Friday

Image | Campbell Webster

Caption: Campbell Webster says Timothy's will host Francophone Fridays until at least March. (Laura Meader/CBC)

A coffee shop in downtown Charlottetown has begun hosting a gathering of French-speakers every Friday, after the owner noticed an increasing number of Francophones on P.E.I. from a variety of countries.
Timothy's owner Campbell Webster said the coffee shop already had a large number of French speakers coming in from Veterans Affairs.
"We noticed actually one day that there was a fairly significant new number of Belgians moving to Prince Edward Island," he told CBC's Island Morning. The shop started hosting the event two weeks ago.
Webster said the gathering, which includes seafood and live music, is open to Francophones or people who just want to practise their French.

'A little community hub'

The event is presented each week by Carrefour de L'Isle-Saint-Jean, a community organization with a mandate to allow people to socialize in French. Executive director Nathalie Arsenault said they have evening events at their Acadian Drive location, but they wanted to hold more events downtown.
"It's very informal. You can have a space where you know there will be other Francophones there, meet your friends, really make it like a little community hub is sort of what we're hoping," she said. "It's going to hopefully build over time."
A promotional video about the gathering(external link) has had more than 18,000 Facebook views in the last two weeks.
"There's this buzz, I think, that people want this," Arsenault said.
Webster says they plan to continue the gatherings until at least March.