The Altona Community Foundation (ACF) has awarded its spring grants, with $33,555 going to 7 community organizations.
“The dollar amount is roughly the same as it has been in other cycles,” explained Vic Loewen, chair of the foundation’s granting committee. “We do 2 cycles a year, one in the spring and one in the fall, splitting our funding between the two.”
According to a news release, successful applicants included the Altona Health Care Auxiliary for 16 ceiling tracks and 2 wheelchairs at the Altona Health Care Centre; Altona Senior Centre for shingles on a new roof replacement; Equal Access Altona for an accessible washroom at Altona Centennial Park; Southern Storm Volleyball Club for the establishment of a beach volleyball court; and Steps toward Reconciliation for a medicine garden at the Altona Community Garden.
This year marked the first time funding was awarded from the recently established Richard Neufeld Legacy Fund, which partnered with the foundation to contribute to Steps toward Reconciliation and Equal Access Altona.
This time around, the foundation focused its spring grants on some of the larger projects that requested funding said Loewen.
“We also looked at, number one, how significant the project would be for the community. But also, we looked at organizations that had either never applied before or who had not applied for a long time because we wanted to spread some of the money around to more organizations.”
Loewen says currently their endowment fund is sitting at just over $2M dollars.
“We’ve had good support from businesses as well as many individuals. Our goal is to reach some of the younger population to get them to start donating to the ACF as well. The Foundation has been supporting many groups over the years with donations for baseball and hockey and all kinds of good projects for the town. Those can only continue if people continue to donate to them. We encourage younger folks to give us $5, $10, whatever they can afford.”
All donations to ACF are tax deductible.
Not surprisingly, applications always surpass available funds and demands are constantly growing.
“There are some groups who probably don’t know about us and where we are trying to get the word out,” said Loewen. “We did have a relatively new applicant this year. I don’t think they’ve ever applied before. That was the Altona Healthcare Auxiliary. It’s kind of nice to have something new come in.”
W.C. Miller Collegiate Youth in Philanthropy (YIP) is 50 per cent funded by the foundation.
Loewen says that relationship helps build awareness of needs within the community
“The YIP group at W.C. Miller has been raising money over the last number of years. The students are getting quite involved with some projects to raise money. It’s a good thing for them as well to be able to choose who they want to provide their grants to.”
This year, YIP donated over $1300 to four local community groups.
Loewen notes that last year’s $750, 000 donation from the Thomas Sill Foundation will translate to a fair amount of extra dollars made available in 2025.
~With files from Candace Derksen~