WESTLOCK — In addition to individual athletes and sports teams, youth in Westlock County travelling a long distance to a variety of other cultural or agricultural events may soon be eligible for financial assistance from the municipality under a new policy.
A draft of the Youth Travel Assistance Grant policy was reviewed by Westlock County councillors during their May 14 committee of the whole meeting.
Under this draft policy, youth under the age of 18 who reside in the county will be eligible to apply for up to grants to assist with attending an artistic, athletic, cultural, agricultural or trade-related event, provided it is more than 150 kilometres away.
The grant will be limited to $200 per team or group or $200 for individuals who participate in zone/regional or provincial competitions.
While most of these grants will be authorized by administration, allocations for national or international-level events shall be authorized by resolution of council.
Funding is contingent on approval of the annual community services operational budget.
Though it wasn’t a consideration for that day, community services co-ordinator Adrienne Finnegan suggested they would probably discuss increasing the budget in 2025 to accommodate this new grant program. However, that topic will be revisited in the fall.
It should be noted that the county previously had a policy concerning youth assistance grants for sporting events.
However, Reeve Christine Wiese said they ended up getting a request from a youth travelling to a non-sporting event.
While councillors did approve that request, they asked administration to revise the old policy, as they recognized there are many non-sporting events that youth may travel to.
Wiese said she saw no issue with the new policy and believed it would have a major impact.
With there being no further discussion of the draft policy, it will now return to the Westlock County council meeting on Tuesday, May 28.
