Community fund will benefit local groups

By Michael Gorman

THE VANGUARD

NovaNewsNow.com

Local charities and non-profit organizations could soon have another source in the community to access for funds.

The Community Foundation of Nova Scotia was recently established to benefit many such groups across the province and now a group of local citizens is establishing a community fund for Yarmouth.

"As the fund grows, our local charities will be able to apply for grants which will help supplement the grants given out by our town council," said Mary Eldridge, the fund's co-chair, in a letter to Yarmouth town council.

Council, at a finance meeting last week, agreed to make the first donation to the fund — $1,000 — with eyes on making a larger contribution in the coming fiscal year when they are able to budget for the expense.

Deputy Mayor Martin Pink, who chairs the town's finance committee, said the introduction of the fund would not only help the town but also allow people to leave money to the town in their wills if they so wished.

"Obviously it depends on how much money is in there," he said. "But if people, when they're alive or upon their death, they want to leave money to their town, you know, by way of a charitable receipt then that's great. They can leave money, it'll build the pot, and the interest can be used for these different projects."

Pink said the fund would help the town when it comes to giving grants to organizations each year. During the annual task the request always outweigh the funds the town has to use, said Pink.

"In the last few years we've had several hundreds of thousands (of dollars) of requests for grants and we've been restricted between $60,000 and $80,000, in my memory, in terms of how much money we've been giving out. So if somebody can give out $20,000, eventually, in grants I would still think that we would be giving out our $80,000 or whatever it is because we've still got needs out there that need to be addressed."

The Deputy Mayor said he does not foresee a time in the near future where the fund would replace the town's grants program.

In the letter to council, Eldridge said money donated to the community fund would be administered only to organizations in the community. People making donations could designate the money for a specific group or for general use, she said.

"The capital will always be preserved, while the income will be distributed each year."