With more than $39,000 in monetary requests received, City of Powell River Council has approved $25,000 in cash grants-in-aid to 13 groups and organizations.
At the council meeting on Thursday, June 6, council voted unanimously in favour of providing support to the applicants through cash and in-kind grants-in-aid.
The approved cash grants-in-aid included:
· Powell River and District United Way, $1,000 for National Volunteer Week April 2019, prizes for volunteers
· Powell River Cycling Association, $1,000 for Bike to Work and School Week, May 27 to June 2, 2019
· Marine Area Business Association, $2,000 for Blackberry Festival Street Party
· Powell River and District Christmas Cheer Committee, $1,000 for Christmas cheer hampers
· Powell River Action Centre Food Bank Society, $10,000 for food bank activities
· Powell River Logger Sports, $2,000 for logger sports weekend/carving sponsorship
· Royal Canadian Legion Branch 164 - Powell River, $75 for Remembrance Day ceremony
· Powell River Pride, $1,500 for August 21 potluck at the United Church and August 24 Pride Day barbecue at Larry Gouthro Park
· Powell River Brain Injury Society, $1,500 for ergonomic chairs and refurnishing meeting space
· Powell River Hospice Society, $1,500 for the hospital volunteer training and coordination program
· Powell River Community First Aid Team, $2,200 for purchase of uniforms for the first aid team
· Powell River Gymnastics, $1,000 to aid with insurance premiums increase
· Townsite Heritage Society, $725 for beautification of Townsite gardens and area
At the June 4 committee of the whole meeting, where the grants-in-aid proposals were announced, city chief financial officer Adam Langenmaier said not everybody received everything they requested.
“Everybody got something,” said Langenmaier. “The requests that had a bigger impact on a large number of people got a bit more weighting.”
The food bank had the biggest ask this year because it is moving. Langenmaier said as a result, it will not receive a permissive tax exemption.
“There is nothing we can do to grant them a permissive tax exemption, so what we can do is grant a larger grant-in-aid to support that,” he added.
Councillor Maggie Hathaway said in light of Powell River’s hugely successful community forest, and a number of these organizations potentially having applied for community forest grants, she asked if there is any other reason to do grants-in-aid.
“Has there ever been any thought to moving toward just doing community forest and not grants-in-aid?” asked Hathaway.
Langenmaier said that decision is up to city council.
Councillor George Doubt said part of the answer to Hathaway’s question is that Powell River Community Forest is required to make financial allocations for capital investments and the grants-in-aid may be for other things such as operating expenses.
“A number of these grant-in-aid requests could be ineligible for community forest funds because they are not capital, so I think that would be the reason why city council might decide to have grants-in-aid,” said Doubt.
Also approved were 15 in-kind grants-in-aid from community organizations, valued at $24,600.
