OLDS — Town council has voted to give the Olds & District Kiwanis Music Festival Society (ODKMFS) a grant for $1,200 to support this year’s festival.
That’s $200 above administrative staff’s recommendation of $1,000, but the amount requested during a verbal discussion a society with town staff.
The grant request came up during council’s Feb. 13 meeting.
In a request for decision (RFD), administrative staff recommended the town provide a grant of $1,000, the figure the town has provided for many years, and the amount requested in a letter from ODKMFS festival fundraiser Anjoli Rice.
The two figures requested confused mayor Judy Dahl.
She asked chief administrative officer Brent Williams if the higher figure had come verbally, as the lower figure was in the letter received by town staff.
"Did you have a verbal conversation with them that they asked for $1,200, their request? What you’re saying is this is their request for 2023, verbally,” she asked.
“Yes, correct,” Williams said.
“These people have never asked for an increase from $1,000 and it’s been over 40 years and they bring thousands of people to our community. I just wanted to bring that back to your attention,” Dahl said.
The RFD backed up that economic impact.
“In 2022, this event had approximately 655 performers from 11 communities," it said.
“The Olds and District Kiwanis Music Festival, hosted at the TransCanada Theatre, is the largest rural music festival in Alberta and proceeds provide scholarships to musicians across the region.
“The Kiwanis Music Festival is a proven economic benefit to the Town of Olds.”
Williams said the decision to recommend $1,000 was “largely” based on the fact that the town’s budget for sponsorships has not increased. Thus, he said, an effort to keep grants at status quo seemed “prudent.”
Coun. Heather Ryan agreed with that reasoning.
"We have a budget set in place,” she said. “We do have lots of requests that come through to us every year.
“This is at the beginning of the year. If we start giving away too much at the beginning, we won’t have enough to satisfy all the donation requests later on in the year. I’m happy with the one thousand dollars.”
However, Coun. Harvey Walsh argued for the larger grant. In fact, he advanced a motion to grant the festival society $1,200.
“It’s been the same for this amount of years, so twelve hundred dollars is not a lot of money to go toward the Kiwanis Music Festival and I’m sure their costs have increased substantially,” he said.
"This is twelve hundred dollars, it’s not a huge impact on the budget.”
Dahl agreed with that assessment.
She indicated that in her opinion it’s especially important fitting to grant the society the extra money as they celebrate the event’s 40th anniversary.
Dahl said the festival attracts so many people that “that parking lot, you can’t get in it.”
