RACF funds community initiatives
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- Published on Monday, November 30, 2015
By Sheila Runions
Banner Staff
A sixth annual grant evening was held on Wednesday, Nov. 18 in the curling club viewing lounge at Riverdale Community Centre. The evening is hosted by Rivers & Area Community Foundation (RACF) which invites representatives of each group to the ceremony to accept their cheque. RACF president Donna Morken told the gathering the board received applications for $101,122 this year; they gave away more than $10,000.
RACF was formed when the Bernard and Iola Goekoop estate left more than $400,000 to the town’s foundation which was subsequently formed in very short order; RACF’s assets are now $422,000. Since that time, $79,464.09 has been given in the form of 50 grants to 28 different organizations. This year’s donations saw more duplicate recipients — six of the eight groups have received support in previous years. RACF provides grants from the interest earned on their investment and while they support seven categories, some groups have overlapping characteristics. The six-year breakdown totals more than 100 per cent, but this is where RACF money has gone: 39 per cent to recreation, 18 per cent to environment, 13 per cent to health, 12 per cent to social, six per cent each to education, heritage and arts.
Razzamatazz Dance Club has 89 dancers in this, its 27th year, making it difficult to recycle costumes for the larger classes; they received $2,000 for the costume department. Riverdale Daycare Committee also received $2,000 which, as they said last year, will be used for furnishings in the new 32-spot facility they hope to have operational in Rivers Collegiate in the next 12 months. Rivers Comets received $1,500 toward ball diamond upgrades; the adult team which formed this spring hopes to play ball in Rivers by July 1, rather than playing all league games in Brandon. Rivers Curling Club was given $1,175 for new bumper pads between their four sheets of ice, and a coat rack which is needed in the club. Clack Family Heritage Museum accepted $1,000 which will be used to replace flooring in some of the many buildings on the site, which is seven miles northwest of Rivers. Prairie Crocus Regional Library also received $1,000 which will be used for a wheelchair-accessible bathroom; construction of the same will begin in spring. Rivers Collegiate’s Wetlands Centre of Excellence was once again supported, this time with $1,000, which is earmarked for the outdoor classroom, as it was last year. Rivers Elementary School received its full request of $849.56 which is the final cost to finish its wooden train play structure.
Morken is not only RACF president but also chairperson of Rivers Train Station Restoration Project; she also took great pleasure in announcing that on Nov. 10, RACF “received word we would get $50,000 from the Burns Family Fund in Winnipeg, which we will give to the train station for roof repairs. We are very excited that someday RACF will have a home in the station; we hope to have roof repairs done next spring.”
Readers may recall that the Nov. 13 issue of Rivers Banner had a full page ad from RACF encouraging people to donate during the Endow Manitoba 24-hour challenge in which funds received on Nov. 14 were matched by Endow Manitoba. That ad also promoted an offer by Thomas Sill Foundation to match all donations received until Sept. 16, 2016 as 50-cent dollars; therefore, the $50,000 Burns donation now becomes $75,000 for the train committee.
Canada’s first community foundation was formed in Winnipeg and while Manitoba is home to only four per cent of the nation’s population, the province boasts 25 per cent of all foundations in Canada. Rivers is one of the 191 foundations which responded to the 2011 challenge by Gov. Gen. David Johnston to be a smart and caring nation which will develop to its fullest potential. “Smart and Caring” is an effort by Canada’s community foundations to pursue two significant goals by Canada’s 150th birthday (2017): to reach more Canadians so each person is served by a foundation in 2017, and to establish Smart and Caring Funds unique to each community, but to share the same vision — to build a nation-wide legacy to serve generations for years to come.
