By Adam Ophus

Helping Hand

Âsokêwin Friendship Centre loses important provincial funding

Dec 3, 2019 | 10:38 AM

The Âsokêwin Friendship Centre, formerly the Rocky Native Friendship Centre Society, recently learned they are set to lose important funding from the province.

“We will be losing two programs March 31, an Early Intervention program and our Community Building Program,” explains Kirby Bigchild, executive director for the centre.

“We also were cut in our core funding from Alberta Indigenous Relations, funding which goes towards core positions and overhead expenses,” he added. “We receive $31,000 from AIR, and $6,000 was cut for next fiscal year.

Bigchild says they will adapt and work with what they have in order to operate efficiently and provide programming and services to the community.

“We are looking at how we can work with the new framework that is replacing these programs that were cut. The Family Resource Network is new to the province and Âsokêwin is working on how we can contribute and provide access to the community under it.”

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The Âsokêwin Friendship Centre suffered more unfortunate luck when their furnace went down and were without heat for over a week and a half.

Thankfully, they received some much needed help from the community.

“I couldn’t have my Centre closed, I’ve got to be opened, we’ll just have to eat the cost, so I guess we will need to do some fundraising,” said Kirby Bigchild, Executive Director for Âsokêwin Friendship Centre. “It was $18,500 and then another couple grand for venting problems.”

Bigchild says they received donations of about $7,000 to help pay the bill, including $5000 from Secure Energy, $1000 from West Fraser, and $1000 from Canadian Natural Resources Limited.

When B-94 staff mentioned that the Clearwater County would also be chipping in up $5,000 to help cover the cost, Bigchild said “Wow, really!?”

When the topic was brought up during Tuesday’s Clearwater County Council meeting, their only hesitation was where they would pull the money from.

The motion to help was unanimously passed by council, with the money coming from contingency funds.