The Town of Olds has made the decision to deliver several grants to community organizations around the region through Mountain View Power.
Twice per year, in the spring and fall, the Mountain View Power Grant Committee recommends a list of several community organizations that would benefit from a funding bump. According to Director of Community Services for the Town of Olds Guy Lapointe, qualifying organizations went through a rigorous screening process to not only ensure funding went to the organizations that needed it the most, but also to those that would best serve the community.
“There is a set of criteria that you have to meet, and there was a couple of applications that didn’t quite make that criteria, and the remaining, it’s a competitive process,” he says. “We have to have a discussion, there’s only so many dollars to go around and we certainly want to make sure that we’re treating the community fairly and evenly, and that we’re seeing the biggest community impact.”
Grants like these are possible through Mountain View Power customers. Lapointe says the community-run energy retailer reinvests its profits into local projects and programming, which he argues is one of the main reasons the organization is so beloved in the community.
“It is an important program, it is making things happen and change within the community, kind of out of scope for normal council things I would say – more grassroots, and ultimately, this is a way that, you have to pay for your power, you have to pay for gas anyway,” he says. “We have competitive rates yes, but really the proposition here for the community should be that we’re spending dollars locally and those dollars are coming back into the community to support projects.”
Council approved a total of $43,100 in grants across six community organizations including the Community Learning Campus, which received $8,000, Imagine Gymnastics, which received $10,000, and the Men’s Shed of Olds, which received $6,350.
