Recipients of the annual Terence Haight grants have been announced. Jeff Watson, chair of the community grants committee spoke to council at the March 21 meeting about organizations who will receive funds.
Gravenhurst resident Terence Haight passed away in 2008 and bequeathed $1 million to the Town. Council established an annual grant program in which local organizations could put forth applications.
In total, $29,986 will be awarded. The 2023 recipients are:
- Gravenhurst Against Poverty – $5,000
- Gravenhurst High School Gryphtech Robotics Club – $4,241
- Gravenhurst Ladies’ Auxiliary Legion – $1,321
- Gravenhurst Royal Canadian Legion – $6,500
- Muskoka Beechgrove Public School – $2,224
- RYDE Community Centre – $2,000
- Safe Quiet Lakes – $700
- Timber Beast Productions – $5,000
- YMCA Muskoka – $3,000
“Gravenhurst has such a strong volunteer base within the community, we are tremendously lucky,” said Jeff Watson, chair of the Community Grants Committee. However, he said “things are not going to be easy, they are going to get harder. I don’t think we have seen the end of the damage that covid has done in our communities.”
Watson also said that the committee wants to “promote more of Terence Haight and what the grants do within the community.” The committee came up with the idea that money given out should come with a small plaque or recognition to the organizations receiving grants. “Something should have his name on it…we want to make people more aware of what wonderful things that Terence Haight money has done for the community.
Rob Rosilius, Manager of Revenue and Deputy Treasurer, said “I have a lot of experience in municipal government and the Terence Haight grant is a truly unique endeavour. It’s very rare to be able to step outside of municipal service delivery and contribute to the community in a positive manner financially without impacting the tax base.”
Rosilius pointed out that in 2023, the grants touched on very different parts of the community. “There’s addressing vulnerable needs to addressing intellectual capacity with the robotics club as well as serving the veterans of our community.”
Last April, council approved increasing the annual grant from $25,000 to $30,000. “We were able to fund 64% of requests, whereas in 2014 to 2022, we were only able to fund 36% of the asks, ” said Rosilius.
In his report, Rosilius wrote that for the 2023 intake the Town received 12 grant applications for a total request of $46,224. This was an increase from the 11 applications received in 2022. Since 2016, the average has been 12 applications received per year.
From 2014 to 2022, there have been 92 applications from 41 unique organizations with requests that have totaled $412,201.Grants awarded have totalled $151,283.
Mayor Heidi Lorenz thanked the committee for their hard work and commented that when she was on that committee, “you can’t believe how hard it is to figure out who to give money to. It’s a really difficult job…I know how hard it is, there’s no not worthy causes to give to.”
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