Lusitânia Portuguese Recreation Centre of Ottawa-Hull is the third oldest Portuguese community association in Canada and the first in the nation’s capital. Throughout its nearly 60 years of existence, it has experienced glorious days but some difficult times as well. However, it remains strong to serve the Portuguese community in this region.Founded in 1963, like many other Portuguese associations, Lusitânia PRC began as a soccer team after a few men met on Rideau Street to plan it all out. It entered the Ottawa Soccer League representing the Portuguese community under the name Lusitânia. In 1964, it rented its first headquarters on Bank Street and then moved to Bronson Street. Soccer remained as the only activity for a few years even though there was a folklore dance group that used the club’s home to practice. Soccer was a way to help the community gather to watch games and socialize at the clubhouse afterwards. This led to the creation of other social and cultural activities as ways to raise funds for the soccer team but also as a form to celebrate our culture. It wasn’t long until the Portuguese community here began to grow to appreciable numbers, which led to greater involvement and to more opportunities. The Portuguese school was one of the results of this involvement, founded in 1967. The local school board provided the club with a classroom on Saturday mornings. In its heyday, enrollment surpassed 60 students at a time the community was around 12,000 strong. It was in the late 1960s that a theatre group was also created here. It became a great hit at the association’s events that were always sold out. However, at the turn of the 1970s, it all began to change due to a couple of occurrences in the community. One was the appearance of a Portuguese church (Senhor Santo Cristo) in Ottawa and then, in 1975, the founding of Amigos Unidos on the other side of the Ottawa River, in Gatineau. This led some members of Lusitânia to leave and join either of those two other organizations.Nonetheless, these setbacks did not stop Lusitânia’s Board of Directors from purchasing their own property, in 1978, that continues to serve as the club’s headquarters. The building was a warehouse but with some effort and hard work from the community, it was renovated and transformed into the beautiful hall that currently holds weekly events. Commendable as it was, the purchase of the new headquarters did not result in greater involvement from its members due to the creation of the above two organizations. It did, however, provide it with the opportunity to broaden the association’s list of activities and to solidify its presence in the community. The involvement continued to be substantial and the building was paid off in a few years. Currently, the association continues to hold a few events every year and rents the hall for other gatherings such as weddings.