United Way Perth-Huron has announced its 2023 New Initiative Grant recipients.
Director of Governance and Community Impact Megan Partridge explains the grants are one-time funding of up to $20,000.
“So they're really meant to help organizations who are looking at things like piloting a new program, starting a small collaboration of groups, all on a smaller scale but just that kind of seed money to try things out," Partridge said.
Partridge says all of the recipients were exceptional but the Vanastra Access Centre was particularly unique because it's a community group that had the vision of having space where service agencies can come in, which is a model that's working in other places but having services available, computer access, all of those things, especially in a smaller area, like Vanastra, is really important.
Partridge says the name of the New Initiative Grant program has changed over the years, but it's been going for several years now. She says the United Way felt it was important community groups like this year's recipients get the opportunity to try out new ideas to make their communities better. She says it's important that they get the funding to be creative and try new things to move forward. This year's five recipients received a total of $50,000 and that money comes from their annual campaign.
“It's a community group that had the vision of having space where service agencies can come in, which is a model that's working in other places, but having services available, computer access, all of those things, especially in a smaller area, like Vanastra, is really important.”
This year's projects are the Canadian Mental Health Association of Huron-Perth's Food Insecurity Initiative, the Huron Perth Children's Aid Society's Rapid Response Fund, Huron Perth Public Health's Two Row Now – Indigenous-led Community Building, the Municipality of Huron East's Vanastra Access Centre and the Rural Response for Healthy Children's What Happened to You? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience and Healing. More information about the program can be found at perthhuron.unitedway.ca.