As we wrap up our Ontario Trillium Foundation Grant, we wanted to make sure that members and visitors to our site know what we have been working on over the last year and a half. Thanks to the Resilient Communities Fund grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation, 5 local organizations (Wallaceburg Adult Activity Centre, Wallaceburg Kinsmen Club, Kinsmen Community Services, Wallaceburg & District Museum, and Sydenham Community Curling Club) were able to fund several studies to determine how to best work together to emerge successfully from COVID, and to examine the potential for a Community Hub, with multiple organizations under one roof, sharing resources and otherwise cooperating. Several studies were conducted over the course of the grant and we will be releasing more information in the coming weeks outlining the various reports.
To start this post series, we are re-releasing the Media Release from our March 10 Grant Acknowledgement Event
March 10, 2023
$84,900 OTF Grant Helps Organizations Work Together
Wallaceburg, ON – On Friday, a representative for local MPP Monte McNaughton met a coalition of local non-profits to hear more about the $84,900 Resilient Communities Fund Grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation (OTF), which was awarded to the Wallaceburg Adult Activity Centre in spring 2022. The OTF grant has supported the development of a partnership with local organizations, leading not-for-profits in the community who are who are struggling to recover from COVID-19, face similar issues and are coming together with a common plan to address them.
“This investment in the Wallaceburg Adult Activity Centre will go a long way towards providing residents with facilities that meet their needs,” said Monte McNaughton, MPP for Lambton-Kent-Middlesex. “Through grants like these, our government is expanding local programs that build a stronger Ontario for everyone.”
The OTF grant has allowed the Wallaceburg Adult Activity Centre to lead a collaborative effort which includes the Wallaceburg and District Museum, the Sydenham Community Curling Club, Kinsmen Community Services and Kinsmen Club of Wallaceburg. Together, the coalition is called the Resilient Communities Group.
The Group is committed to ensuring that Wallaceburg and the surrounding areas have facilities that meet the needs of those in the community. The OTF funding will support studies that will be the first, important steps in achieving both the shorter-term goals of utilizing current resources and identifying longer term goal of a centralized community centre. The Group is working with professional consultants to determine the needs of the community and how best to use their current facilities to meet those needs. This is being achieved through organizational needs assessments, input and feedback from local organizations, as well as professional assessments of other communities who have encountered similar challenges, and steps they have taken to overcome said challenges.
“The impact of this Ontario Trillium Foundation grant cannot be overstated,” said Sheldon Parsons, Chairperson for the Project. “It has allowed us to work with a number of local not-for-profit organizations interested in what is needed to recover from COVID-19, bring our facilities up to current building standards and determine how we can co-operate to help each other and other community groups to meet our current obligations, not as individual groups but as a collection of very active and successful organizations that want to find ways to do more to help other community groups – now and into the future.”
The Ontario Trillium Foundation (OTF), an agency of the Government of Ontario, and one of Canada’s leading granting foundations celebrates 40 years of grantmaking in Ontario and making a lasting impact in communities. Last year, OTF invested nearly $209M into 2,042 community projects and partnerships, which included funding for the Government of Ontario’s Community Building Fund. Visit otf.ca to learn more.
