Fresh Paint Studio + Café: Help Us Rebuild After Fire + Flood

Dear Community,

My name is Roxane Tracey, and I’m the founder of Fresh Paint Studio + Café.

On September 12, 2025, a massive arson fire destroyed the back of our studio—an art space that has proudly called Danforth Avenue home for the last 10 years.

For a decade, we’ve had the honour of watching thousands of people walk through our doors—kids painting for the first time, families making memories, couples celebrating milestones, and teams reconnecting through creativity.

Again and again, we’ve seen people leave Fresh Paint with something they didn’t have when they arrived: more joy, more calm, more confidence, and more connection.

The day of the fire, I was in the building. I can’t fully describe what it felt like to stand there and watch something I built with years of determination, sacrifice, and hope destroyed in a matter of minutes. It was a devastating moment of helplessness.

Fresh Paint has always been rooted in community—created for community. And our deepest hope is not just to rebuild a business, but to restore a space that belongs to the people who have filled it with life for the past 10 years.

But an incident of this magnitude doesn’t end when the flames are out.

When we thought it couldn’t get worse… the flood came.

About four days after the fire, we opened the studio door and were met with another heartbreak: extreme flooding from the ceiling, caused by heavy rains and an unprotected exterior roof.

What little we hoped might be salvageable—supplies, equipment, materials, stock—was left water-damaged and destroyed.

That moment cracked something in me. Hope felt cracked… if not broken.

Despite the heaviness of each day, we pivoted anyway—because our community still needed us.

In the days after the fire, we made a decision: we would keep going.

We pivoted to community partnerships with local venues so we could continue hosting events, kids programs, and creative experiences. But mobile operations come with extra costs—transport, storage, setup, rentals, staffing logistics—and those expenses were out-of-pocket.

There was no relief in sight.

This is the kind of event that hits small businesses extremely hard—especially ones built on gathering, space, and community.

We leased another location to survive.

With no clear timeline for when our Danforth studio would reopen, we leased another location and purchased equipment so we could keep our team working and keep community events running.

We’ve been doing everything we can to stay afloat.

But we’ve reached a point where we are running on financial fumes.

The fire. The flood. The pivot to mobile operations. The new location. And now the enormous cost of restoring the Danforth space and replacing its contents – it feels insurmountable.

Some days, going dark feels like the more rational decision.

But we are still standing—and our intention is to continue to do so, with your support.

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How your donation will help

While we are grateful for insurance, our coverage will fall short of what it will truly take to bring Fresh Paint back to life—safely, beautifully, and in a way that honours what this space has meant for so many.

Your donation will help us:

• replace essential studio + café equipment, furniture and fixtures lost to fire and flooding

• cover urgent operating costs as we continue running programs at our temporary location

• keep our team working and continue offering creative experiences that support creative wellness and community connection.

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If Fresh Paint has ever been part of your story…

If Fresh Paint Studio has ever been a place where you celebrated, healed, created, laughed, or made a memory—please consider donating or sharing this fundraiser.

Every contribution, no matter the size, helps us take a real step forward.

From the bottom of my heart: thank you for standing with us. Thank you for believing in the power of community.

And thank you for helping bring Fresh Paint Studio back home.

With gratitude,

Roxane Tracey

Founder, Fresh Paint Studio + Café