A symphony, a museum, therapeutic riding, the Alzheimer's Society and a library will each receive a portion of $400,000 in Provincial funding in Grey Bruce.
Minister of Heritage, Sport, Tourism and Culture Lisa MacLeod made the announcement alongside Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound MPP Bill Walker at Grey Roots Museum and Archive Thursday (Aug 13th).
MacLeod made a $550,000 announcement for the same industries in Huron-Bruce Wednesday.
The following funding was announced:
$64,000 for the Alzheimer Society of Grey-Bruce
$42,700 for the Hope Haven Therapeutic Riding and Family Camp in Markdale
$75,980 for the Owen Sound and North Grey Union Public Library
$63,534 for the Grey Roots Museum and Archive
$7,830 for the Symphony in the Barn Events for Every Season in Durham
The Money is flowing through Community Museum Operating Grants, the Celebrate Ontario Program and the Ontario Trillium Foundation.
MacLeod says funding allocation is decided generally by application, “We have rigorous processes and these are application based and they're scored. In the case of the Ontario Trillium Foundation we have a board here in Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound area that Minister Walker helps make appointments to,” MacLeod adds, “When it comes to festival funding for example, we have a granting process through 'Celebrate' (Ontario) where everything is scored including the economic impact of that festival or event, so those who are awarded today scored very high on that list.”
With regard to the Alzheimer's Society, which may not be the first thing that comes to mind when thinking of MacLeod's portfolio, she says, “We do a lot of work in terms of citizenship and civic development—effectively the cultural fabric of your community.”
The Minister says she will be opening up another fund for festivals before the new year, “Those same types of scoring will occur.”
“These are targeted investments,” says MacLeod who notes “Every dollar I invest into a festival returns $21 to that local economy. I think that's a pretty good return on investments and we haven't even talked about sports yet.”
On that subject, MacLeod says she and Premier Doug Ford will be making an announcement Friday (Aug 13).
MacLeod says it will address capacity issues as well as funding, “We support over 60 Provincial sport organizations across the province. We want to make sure that they're viable. We support everybody for your Timbits Hockey, and we work with the Toronto Raptors so we really have a large gamut of people that we work with and we want to make sure that we continue to develop our athletes.”
