You don’t have to talk to many people here in Charlottetown to find out that Ray Murphy, personable owner of Murphy Pharmacies, is a pretty good guy. Tales of his community generosity abound, and if there’s a health-related good cause in this city, it’s likely that Ray’s company is offering it some support.

Which is one of the reasons why I’m happy to read, as CBC is reporting, that our neighbourhood recreation centre, formerly owned by the Roman Catholic Diocese, has recently been purchased by Ray Murphy, with a goal of “turning it back into a building where people will gather for some healthy exercise.”

There’s a scarcity of recreational facilities in Charlottetown’s downtown; flipping through the City of Charlottetown’s recreation brochure you find that there’s a heavy concentration of activities out in the suburbs, but almost nothing south of Euston St. I’ve been searching for an alternative to “calling the cops” when neighbourhood kids with no place to play do dangerous things like “climbing onto the roof of our carriage house” because they’ve got nowhere else to hang out; perhaps the new “Murphy’s Community Centre” can help.

It’s nice to see that a company that’s in the “health business” is visionary enough to know that there’s more to health than prescriptions and shampoo; kudos to Mr. Murphy and his group for taking this bold move. Let us know what we can do to help.