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By Chris Brown

looking for advisory committee members

‘Give where they live’: CFSEA establishes Cypress County Community Fund

Dec 14, 2021 | 3:47 PM

CYPRESS COUNTY, AB – The Community Foundation of Southeastern Alberta has created a new way for people in the region to better their communities.

The Cypress County Community Fund ensures everyone can truly “give where they live,” says the CFSEA’s acting executive director.

“So they don’t have to drive to the Medicine Hat office to make a donation to the Community Foundation as a whole,” Niki Gray says. “They can designate their donation directly to the Cypress County fund and those donations will stay to support the organizations in that county forever.”

The fund has been established thanks to a $10,000 contribution from county council and a matching contribution by the Community Foundation board.

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Three other rural community funds – the Brooks & District Community Fund, the Prairie Crocus Community Fund for Special Areas 2 and 3 and the MD of Acadia, and the Rural Community Fund of Forth Mile – were established in 2019. Gray says they’ve seen a great increase in grants to charities in those areas since then.

She says the funds helped create deep connections in the communities and the same is expected for the newest fund.

“And what we love about this is that it provides an opportunity for people to live in the community, who know what’s best in their area and what is needed in their communities determine what needs funding and what doesn’t,” Gray explains. “So this was always a little bit trickier with our grants community on whether to, we’ve always distributed funds across the region, but these advisory committees really give us that local knowledge and expertise on what those needs are.”

The county and CFSEA are looking for county residents to sit on an advisory committee that will lead the direction of the funding. Four people have already stepped forward, including council members, and Gray says they’re looking for three or four more committee members.

A statement from Cypress County Council says the new fund will give an extra lift to the great projects and ideas in the county.