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Barrhead Elks Club donates three months of operational funding to Thrive

Elks donation along with a similar funding from the town will keep the family violence prevention program afloat until spring
Karen Gariepy Oct. 5 copy
Barrhead Family and Community Support Services executive director Karen Gariepy, seen here at an Oct. 5 County of Barrhead council meeting made a pitch to the local Elks chapter for funding for the organization's Thrive program.

BARRHEAD - Barrhead's Thrive program will have a little more breathing room while it waits to find out if its efforts in getting federal funding have been successful. 

The Thrive program is a family violence and relationship abuse prevention initiative. It is run by Barrhead and District Family Support Services (FCSS) as part of its community programming. 

Last week, following a presentation by FCSS executive director Karen Gariepy and Thrive outreach worker Cheri Jantz, the Barrhead Elks Club agreed to donate the equivalent of three months of operating funding to help bridge the gap until they, hopefully, receive their grant. 

The Elks donation follows a similar one by the Town of Barrhead in December, when councillors approved an FCSS request to provide two months of bridge funding for January and February worth about $6,500. 

If they had not received the funding, FCSS would have been forced to shutter the program before the New Year. 

The two donations will allow Thrive to continue to operate until May. 

The grant Gariepy and Jantz were referring to is one that Healthy Futures Healthy Families applied for on the behalf of the three Thrive family violence prevention programs in the region, including Barrhead, Athabasca and Westlock. 

Formed in 2010, Healthy Families Healthy Futures (HFHF) is a not-for-profit society. The society offers several services to “strengthen” families in Westlock and Athabasca. HFHF also runs programs in Lac La Biche, Swan Hills, Fort Assiniboine, Smoky Lake, Thorhild and Whitecourt as well as their surrounding areas. 

It is also an arm of the Community Action For Healthy Relationships (CAHR) Network. CAHR is a community partnership of individuals, agencies and organizations that focus on providing outreach services to women, men and children affected by abuse. 

"(Gariepy and Jantz) did a great job at presenting," said Elks president Jim Birnie. "It would be terrible for the community to lose such an important program just because there was a delay in them getting their grant." 

If it turns out, HFHF's grant application is successful, the Elks have requested that their donation be redirected to FCSS' hot school lunch program. 

HFHF executive director Brandy Berry said she applied for a grant through the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) in August and they were supposed to hear if their bid was successful by no later than December.

"They have extended the time they need until they make an announcement," she said.

Berry did not want to give specifics of the grant, saying she did not want to "count her chickens before they hatched." However, she said the grant "was a multi-pronged, multi-faceted grant that would benefit multiple communities in and out of the CAHR Network" and Thrive, if they were successful, would be one of the beneficiaries. 

She also added in the current financial climate with federal and provincial government funding becoming more scarce, it is more important for organizations to look for opportunities where they could pool their efforts. 

 "We (CAHR Network) no longer have a coordinator, so a lot of the hard work that is being done by the CAHR leadership team is being done off the side of desks to keep Thrive alive in our communities even though the network doesn't have base funding," Berry said. 

This is not the first time the Thrive program has been in jeopardy. In September 2018, then-FCSS director Shelly Dewsnap announced that the program would end in March after its provincial funding was exhausted. 

Since then, the program has continued on the strength of FCSS' community fundraising efforts, buoyed by a $15,000 grant from the Town of Barrhead and a $15,000 donation from the Barrhead Rotary Club. 

The donations were part of a partnership proposed by the Rotary Club. They suggested that the Rotary Club and the town and county contribute $15,000, as their combined contributions equalled roughly a year of Thrive's operating budget. The county denied the Rotary Club's request. 

 


Barry Kerton

About the Author: Barry Kerton

Barry Kerton is the managing editor of the Barrhead Leader, joining the paper in 2014. He covers news, municipal politics and sports.
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