OLDS - Unused 2020 Family and Community Support Services (FCSS) funds are being re-allocated to two organizations to help them continue adapting operations during the pandemic.
The Boys and Girls Club of Olds and Area is receiving $8,000 in extra funds while Youth Empowerment Support (YES) has been approved for $5,000.
Annual funding dispersed through FCSS is cost-shared between the province and the municipality. Due to COVID-19, not all programs that were allocated FCSS grants ran this year, said Doug Wagstaff, the town’s director of community services.
If the $13,000 in left-over funding wasn’t distributed, town council was told during a recent council meeting that it would have to be returned to the province.
Boys and Girls Club was one of the first organizations in Olds permitted to re-open as the spring lockdown wound-down. It provides services for children up to the age of 18.
The organization’s Early Learning and Child Care Centre opened in late April for children of essential workers including firefighters and police, doctors, nurses and other health-care staff as well as retail staff deemed essential such as grocery store employees.
At the time, they had to include new public health restrictions in operations and continue to do so.
Wagstaff said that did add “additional cost with regards to how they were operating, how they were dividing up their groups and the fact that they couldn’t be sharing a lot of the items they had.”
The new FCSS funding will go toward the organization’s continued program expenses, he said.
The YES program will also use the extra funds for program supplies, he said.
“Again, they faced some of the similar sorts of pressures. A lot of the supplies they had for programs -- in the ways that they have traditionally interacted with the youth -- they had to shift and separate out a lot of their supplies as well as purchase additional,” he said.
The YES program aims to reduce stigma in mental health.
“They work with programs that foster emotional development both in children and younger youth and provide those youth tools they need to be resilient, independent and competent members of society so that is a preventative program," he said.
Council was unanimous in approving the additional funds, with mayor Mike Muzychka commenting that both programs “are incredibly vital to our community.”
