Province gives boost to Environment Lethbridge
GRANT WILL GO TOWARD INITIATIVE AIMED AT HELPING BUSINESS BECOME ENERGY-EFFICIENT
The provincial government has kicked in more than $40,000 to a local organization looking at ways to help small businesses get the most out of energy efficiency.
On Friday on the Sustainival grounds at Enmax Centre, Shannon Phillips, Minister of Environment and Parks, presented Environment Lethbridge with a cheque for $44,637 through the Community Initiatives Program.
The grants are paid out to support local nonprofits through improving their programming as well as their physical infrastructure.
“Last year we supported the food bank, and Westwinds Gymnastics,” said Phillips. “This year, we’ve got rwo (more) projects.”
Both of those projects help deliver their services to the people of Lethbridge.
Kathleen Sheppard, executive director for Environment Lethbridge, said the funding opportunity will give the organization a chance to go out and meet with small businesses about energy efficiency.
“As I’m sure everybody knows, energy efficiency is a really hot topic right now,” she said.
Sheppard said the plan is to meet with small businesses to find out what their needs are, and to figure out how to help them from there.
“We’re going to do some outreach,” she said. “We’re going to talk to small businesses about what they see the benefits and barriers of energy efficiency. From that we will develop a list of action items we hope small businesses can take.
“Phase two will be to help them implement those actions.”
Sheppard said small businesses are a core of the community, but they can be overlooked for outreach programming.
“There is lots of outreach programing to individual homeowners, and that sort of thing. There tends to be lots of bigscale programs for industry. We feel there is really a gap for small businesses.
Phillips said it is important to continue funding these types of efforts in the community.
“These are the kinds of supports for non-profits and communities that would have been easy to cut, but our government chose not to do that,” she said.
“Certainly, conservatives would cut these programs when faced with a recession, but we chose not to.
“We chose to continue to support the community.”
CIP is a fund to support initiatives that enhance and enrich communities. The program reinvests lottery revenue into communities to meet local needs.
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