A new community grant program is intended to inspire new events at Marine Peace Park.
Fun in the Park grants of up to $300 are now available for a maximum of 10 events at the Salmon Arm park by the wharf.
The grants are available through the Inspiring Communities Program, a collaboration between Downtown Salmon Arm, Canadian Mental Health Association Shuswap-Revelstoke and the Shuswap Community Foundation, intended to bring communities together in a healthy and active way.
“We’d love to see more stuff happen throughout the whole year,” said Downtown Salmon Arm manager Lindsay Wong. “We’ve got lots of great fall days we could be doing things down there ,or early spring… even something like an Easter egg hunt we could be doing, or a clean up in the spring… There’s so many ideas and so many things. This is a start for people to get going, OK, well, there’s support out there for me if I want to do something.”
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The grants are intended to help relieve some of the barriers to host an event at Marine Park, such as insurance and/or access to electricity at the Marine Park gazebo.
“The key one is obviously insurance because most of these groups, we’re assuming, are not going to have their own insurance, so they’ll have to get that one-day even liability event insurance,” said Wong, noting the insurance needed for a one-day event can be had for $125 plus a $25 fee.
To be eligible for the grant, events must be free, inclusive, community driven and not be in contravention of the BC Human Rights code.
Part of the reason for the grant, said Wong, is to see more activities at a community park that she sees as being underutilized.
“It’s kind of this combination of looking at the park as a tourism asset to bring people into the downtown as a draw and wanting to create more of something to go on there as far as activities and to keep people there,” said Wong.
For more information about the Fun in the Park grant, or to apply, email inspiringcommunities@salmonarmdowntown.com or call 250-832-5440.
@SalmonArm
lachlan@saobserver.net
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