Carleton Place Community Enrichment program awards over $24K to local groups

HEDDY SOROUR

The first intake of the Carleton Place Community Enrichment program has closed and funds amounting to $24,867 of the $30,000 envelope approved in the town’s budget, have been allocated.

“I’ve always really liked this program because what this really is, is all the things that so many volunteers do in the town in the course of the year and this is just one intake stream. You’ll see more of this as the year goes on but look at how little money goes into this program, considering how much gets done with it for the community in general,” said Andrew Tennant deputy mayor Carleton Place.

Of the 23 applicants, 22 have been approved for funding.  The bulk of the grants are for in-kind support as those requests get priority according to the Community Enrichment program parameters.  In kind support includes use of municipal equipment such as tables or facilities, as well as staff time for set up and tear down before and after an event. Each applicant is allocated a maximum sum but they may not end up using it all.

“We say “up to”  just because when it gets into delivering and staffing fees of different municipal equipment, that fee might fluctuate.  Say an organization may ask for 10 tables but then when you start setting up, they need 20 – so staff have to go and do more. So we say this is the absolute max for you, but not all of them may hit that total allocation of $300 or $1,500, that’s why we say up to and as the event takes place we tweak what they actually ended up receiving and then we’ll know what’s available for second intake,” Hansen explains to committee.

Among the successful applicants for in-kind support are the Alzheimer’s Society of Lanark Leeds and Greenville for up to $672 for their Boots, Hearts & Hope event;  Arts Carleton Place for up to $1,500 for the 20th Anniversary Spring Fine Art Show; the Canoe Club for up to $1,500 towards the 2025 U12/U14 Eastern Ontario Divisional Championships; Carleton Place Comic Con for nearly $2000 towards the Carleton Place Comic Con; the Library for up to $200 towards the Mini-Maker’s Market; the downtown BAI for up to $1,500 to help offset expenses associated with 2025 Bridge Street Summerfest; Dragonboat Festival for up to $1,500; IODE Captain Hopper chapter for up to $750 towards their annual craft show; Mississippi Mudds for up to $1,500 to help offset expenses associated with putting on a play at the Town Hall Auditorium; Race Around the Place for up to $1,500; Rotary Club for up to $900 towards the Rotary Women’s Fair in November.

“Race Around the place is kind of new this year.  There’s a group of runners that meet every Saturday morning called the Riverside Trail Trotters and they did an impromptu inaugural race last year that was very informal, and very successful so they’re looking to further develop that and they are going to host a five, ten and half marathon race through Carleton Place” said Hansen.

Ten applicants are being granted financial support to offset expenses or a combination of financial support and in-kind support. They include: The Legion for $1,500 to help with the Community Tattoo event; Carleton Place & District Community Band for $1,000 to support two free concerts in Riverside Park in June and July; Carleton Place Kids Fishing Derby for $300 to help with liability insurance for this popular event; Porch Fest for $950 to help publicize this first annual event and help cover liability insurance among other things; Carleton Place Environmental Advisory Committee for $500 in financial support and up to $1,000 in kind support towards Earthfest; Elevation Athletics have been approved for $500 in financial support and $500 in-kind support towards the fist Annual Pickleball Festival Fundraiser; Lanark County Interval House for $1,500 towards their Take Back the Night event and last the Mississippi Lake Association has been granted $500 towards their range of activities surrounding water quality, the environment and sustainable development.

“With this first intake many of the organizations that have applied for second intake in the past actually came forward in the first intake this year, which makes our planning a little bit easier,” said Hansen.

There is still $5,133 in the funding envelope for the second intake at this time.  The deadline for the second intake is August 31, 2025.