Canmore council voted earlier this month to provide $30,000 in community grants to various local non-profit organizations.
Manager of community services Brenda Caston presented the recommended recipients and amounts to elected officials, noting that a total of $68,000 in requests were received.
“With that the grant committee used the grant policy to look at the requests,” she said. “Each group needs to be a registered non-for-profit organization, the project needs to fit into the town business plan, it needs to benefit Canmore residents, it needs to be completed in 12 months or less and not duplicate other funding sources.”
The amount of funds being provided, she added, must be less than 25 per cent of the total budget.
Only five projects met the criteria for full funding and eight out of 11 projects that applied received funding.
No funding went to the Bow Valley Squash Foundation, the Rocky Mountain Adaptive Sports Centre and Association, or Canadienne Francaise de l’Alberta-Regionale Canmore-Banff (ACFA).
Councillor Sean Krausert put forward a motion to increase a $5,000 grant to Our Lady of the Snows IGEM Team by $1,600 – the amount left unspent in the community grant budget.
OLS students are studying keratinase, an enzyme that naturally degrades human hair and other materials that cause waste management issues, and are taking the project to a competition in Boston.
“I think these students are not only great ambassadors for Canmore and are doing work that is well beyond anything I was subject to in high school, but (this project) also of all these (grants) is potentially beneficial for town operations,” Krausert said. “I would like to support them to the greatest extent possible.”
Given that the students have other options for fundraising in the community, council did not support the motion.
Bighorn Sounds was granted $5,000, but Caston noted the organization is awaiting non-profit status and the grant will only be made if it is received.
Other grant recipients include:
• Societe des parents l’education Francophone de Canmore (SPEF): $2,000 for startup costs to open a Francophone preschool daycare in the summer.
• Canmore Skating Club: $5,000 towards a figure skating competition to be held in Canmore with 175 participants.
• Canmore Museum and Geoscience Centre: $5,000 for a new exhibit replacing and improving upon the one destroyed in the flooding of the Civic Centre in 2014.
• Valley Winds Music Association: $2,400 towards the purchase of a new or slightly used riser for performances to meet the need of a larger number of musicians.
• Hope For Kids: $1,000 for care packages for families with children who are chronically or terminally ill.
• The Rockies Institute: $3,000 for a start-up non-profit that will convene experts to brainstorm and envision the fist project for the institute regarding changes in the enviornment.
According to the staff report, the Rockies Institute is a new initiative that will connect to local resources like the Biosphere Institute and hold a three- to four-day Building Resiliency and Adaptation activity.
“We see it as a good project to start a conversation about what kind of project and adaptive work can be done environmentally locally,” Caston said.
