REGINA — Eligible communities and organizations should get their applications ready for the Grey Cup Festival Legacy Grant Program.
Applications are now being accepted for the grant program which was announced by the Saskatchewan Roughriders on Monday. A total of $250,000 is being set aside for grants to establish and support programs toward mental health, youth and healthy lifestyles. The money will be available to communities across Saskatchewan.
According to Jonathan Huntington, one of the Volunteer Host Organizing Committee Provincial Outreach chairs, this program will be unique. Each application will be eligible for a maximum per application of $50,000 in grant money. The groups eligible to apply are municipalities, Indigenous communities, and registered charitable organizations.
“The money can be used for infrastructure programs, it can also be used for program costs,” said Huntington.
When asked what might be an ideal application, Huntington posed a couple of examples: one possibility is that an Indigenous community could seek funds for sports equipment or sports facilities, or a municipality or charitable organization could seek to set up a mental health program. He emphasized the grant dollars awarded would come to these communities and organizations this year.
The program is open as of Jan 30, with application forms found at the website Riderville.com. The deadline to apply is Feb. 27.
Huntington encourages applicants to apply early as they expect a "significant number of applications."
“Grant dollars are hard to come by in Saskatchewan, they’re much needed,” said Huntington. "We know that when we looked at the marketplace."
As for funding for the legacy grants, those come in part from the 50/50 proceeds from the Grey Cup game.
The program comes following the successful Grey Cup Festival in November, when Regina hosted the 2022 Grey Cup. The football game and associated events throughout the week attracted fans from across the province and the country.
“The Grey Cup Festival Legacy Grant Program was created to ensure that even now that the Grey Cup is over, its legacy will live on,” said Grey Cup Festival Operations Chair and Roughriders Chief Financial Officer Kent Paul at the announcement Monday at Mosaic Stadium.
Other Grey Cups have had legacy programs, but Huntington said they wanted to make sure that this legacy “was not just in Regina, it was around the province. So one of the best ways to do this, we felt, was a grant program.” He also noted he didn't know of other Grey Cups having done their legacy programs this way.
He pointed to the community celebration tour that took place for the Grey Cup, and there was an online application program associated with that last spring where more than 60 communities applied for the $25,000 grants available. “So we know there’s huge appetite for this, and we think we’ll get flooded with applications.”
This particular legacy program differs somewhat from 2013, which saw different portions of the soon-to-be-dismantled Taylor Field distributed to different communities as part of that process, including the scoreboard and seats. Officials noted the particular focus on mental health is a distinguishing factor this time around.
As for the ultimate criteria on which programs or communities are selected, Huntington made clear the focus is more about quality as opposed to geography.
“We’re going to take the best applications that come in,” he said. “There will be a scoring matrix, just like we did with the Grey Cup Festival Celebration Tour. We had a matrix then, we’ll have a matrix now.”
Huntington noted as part of the 'Riders commitment to reconciliation, the adjudication panel will give “particular attention” to applications with an Indigenous engagement plan.
Paul told reporters details of the full legacy project, along with the announcement of the grant recipients, will come during the spring when they also hope to release financial results of the 2022 Grey Cup and Grey Cup Festival and its economic impact on Saskatchewan.
