Committed to its purpose
Horsham Sports and Community Club has maintained a strong financial commitment to Wimmera institutions and their volunteers despite the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The club, despite being unable to operate as usual with limited patronage, has still managed to distribute $88,000 in sponsorships to 66 groups this year.
It had advertised in March 2020 that it would have $142,000 for successful projects before the pandemic changed circumstances across Australia.
Manager Glenn Carroll said the club’s management board decided at the time to place the sponsorship program on hold to assess the impact of the pandemic.
“It’s a situation we’re still caught up in,” he said.
“COVID-19 hit the club hard, however we have remained committed to the purpose of the club and that is to support our local community.
“In March this year we contacted all applicants from 2020 to discover how their projects were going.
“To our delight 27 percent of the projects had been completed.
“Given that we were in the midst of the pandemic the board made the courageous decision to look at all remaining applications and allocate $88,000 in sponsorships.”
Mr Carroll emphasised the club’s purpose was to always support the ‘local’ community.
“It’s written into the club rules,” he said.
To date the club, on the site of
former La Fontana and Jakades entertainment centres, has allocated $2,170,627 through the program and more than $3-million to the regional community overall. Sponsorship recipients come from a broad background with various projects.
Latest recipients include Wimmera Southern Mallee LLEN to help provide a Let’s Read literacy program
for young people. The community club has overall allocated $18,000 to the program, which covers Horsham, Hindmarsh, West Wimmera and Yarriambiack municipalities.
Other recipients in the latest round of funding include Horsham City Rowing Club to buy rowing machines; Nhill Bowling Club for bowling sets; Horsham Senior Citizens
for a new fridge; Taylors Lake Football Netball Club for a new netball umpire and scorer shelter; Brim Lions Club for seating at Brim Weir Pool Recreation Reserve; and Horsham Badminton Association for equipment and rural fire brigades across the region to upgrade and maintain equipment.