92-year-old organization needs help
Niagara Falls Badminton and Tennis Club hopes to raise $20,000 in online appeal
“We still have to pay the bills. We still have to pay property taxes.” JEFF CLAPP
NIAGARA FALLS BADMINTON AND TENNIS CLUB GENERAL MANAGER
“Believe me, I would take a fire every time. No question!”
That’s how Niagara Falls Badminton and Tennis Club general manager Jeff Clapp compared the aftermath of a fire in 1996 to the ongoing effects of COVID-19 on the bottom line of the not-for-profit organization.
Unlike the fire, which caused an estimated $70,000 in damages to the facility on Willmott Street before the last ember was doused, the coronavirus pandemic remains ongoing, with no end in sight. Money from the badminton club’s sports programs, its main source of revenue, has plunged due to a double-whammy of declining participation and two lockdowns.
Normally, the club that this year is celebrating its 92nd anniversary could count on revenue from more than 40 teams for its beach volleyball program during the summer and upwards of 60 for indoor volleyball during the winter months.
“We didn’t run our (beach) volleyball leagues at all, so we had no teams. We lost out on the whole summer,” program manager Brittany Thomasclapp said.
Interest in badminton, including a junior program, and table tennis also nosedived after the club reopened Aug. 3 following the first provincewide lockdown, which was imposed March 16.
As well, the 100-member Falls Bowls Club, which rents from the racket organization, didn’t run any leagues or tourneys in the summer of 2020
“A lot of these things haven’t been running near capacity and we’ve had to cancel programs,” she said.
“Thousands of people are going through the building throughout the year, whether it’s people from Niagara Falls or, when we have tournaments, people from all over Ontario who are coming here.”
Meanwhile, the club’s bills, including utilities and property taxes, total thousands of dollars every month.
“We still have to pay the bills. We still have to pay property taxes,” said Clapp, who is in his 31st year overseeing operations of the member-run club.
Before launching a $20,000 Gofundme initiative, the club had planned a bottle drive for Jan. 16 but a provincewide state-of-emergency was imposed four days before.
“We couldn’t hold our bottle drive,” Stewart said.
At that point, only about $800 had been raised to meet monthly expenses.
At first, the club was reluctant to make an online appeal.
“We were kind of hesitant to do that, just because we don’t want to beg people for money during a rough time because we know we’re not the only people who are having a rough time,” Thomas-clapp said. “There are individuals who haven’t worked, even since March of last year, but we were approached by many of our members, past members about donations.
“We figured a Gofundme would be the easiest way for people to do that so they’re not dropping off money or they’re not dropping off cheques. They could simply do it at home and do it online.”
Besides covering monthly expenses, Gofundme proceeds will help the club repay two loans.
“We’ve taken out a loan, a government loan, that was given to businesses, but that first round of that loan is gone,” she said. “Now, we also have another loan that we’ve started digging into to just pay the bills.
“At this point, it’s ‘Where does the loan money stop?’ It’s all money that we owe back.”
None of the money will be going to pay wages. About 10 employees, including bartenders, cleaners and referees, have been on CERB and, after that, on Employment Insurance.
Gofundme proceeds may buy the club some time, “a bit of a safety net just in case.”
“We think it’s going to carry us at least into the summer. We’re thinking we probably aren’t going to open until the summer time,” she said. “We’re trying not to dig any more into the loan because we don’t really know.
“If we don’t run our programs, then we’re kind of in trouble.”
Thomas-clapp, who has been with the club for 16 years, attributed the plunge in participation to a combination of financial reasons and the fear of becoming infected with the virus.
“Usually, we have around 60 volleyball teams and we’re just over 20 right now, and we had to cancel multiple nights,” she said.
Technically, the club can operate under red-zone restrictions, though only at a 10-person capacity.
“At that point, we’re losing money, even if we open up the building, so we have to wait until the orange zone to even run any of our programs,” Thomasclapp said.
Thomas-clapp was five years old when fire damaged the club that, back then, like now, was managed by her father.
“This one seems to be way worse. A lot of people are not in a good financial place,” she said. “We have a lot of people from the casinos who play at the club, and they haven’t been at work since March. And there’s really no opening date for them.”
Anyone who wants to make an online donation to the club, go to: https://ca.gofundme.com/ f/t4c7uf-niagara-fallsbadminton-and-tennis-club. A total of $4,730 had been raised as of noon Monday.