The Ottawa Folklore Centre has slipped into bankruptcy after almost 40 years of operation.

The centre has been struggling financially for some time. An appeal last year lead to an injection of funds but that was apparently not enough to save the enterprise. On Thursday, founder and owner Arthur McGregor said the centre is closing and is being handed over to a bankruptcy trustee, Ginsberg Gingras.

“There are few things more important to me than folk music and the deep community that it engenders. I have dedicated most of my life to this community. For the past 38 years the main symbol of that dedication has been the Ottawa Folklore Centre. I opened it on Bronson Avenue in 1976 and later, Terry Penner, my late wife, and I moved it to its present location on Bank Street,” McGregor wrote in a facebook post Thursday morning.

“In recent years the challenge of keeping the OFC alive has been steadily increasing to the point where the impact on my personal life is no longer bearable. It has become quite clear that in spite of our on- going efforts and personal sacrifices, this business is simply not sustainable,” he added.

McGregor says he pursued several ways of keeping the centre afloat including trying to find buyers of the business, but without much success.