Print

E-mail

Text

It's tempting, one supposes, to simply look at a dollar figure associated with a particular product or devoted to a particular cause and make an on-the-spot judgment as to that figure's legitimacy.

Tempting? Actually, we do it all the time.

Tuesday, the Ontario Trillium Foundation officially announced its latest round of funding grants to non-profit and charitable organizations. As part of $33 million doled out provincewide, more than $5 million is earmarked for Toronto organizations and is spread out over 44 separate grants.

In truth, many of the products and services that are enabled by these grants are things that many of us, well, take for granted.

These grants go to a range of local organizations from the sporting, to the artistic to the cultural, to name a few; and goals for these organizations range from increased physical and mental health to increased student success, to increased employment and economic potential for people and organizations.

Among the grant recipients:

* Nellie's, an emergency women's shelter, is receiving $94,700 over one year for interior renovations, which include accessibility improvements;

* The Toronto Wildlife Centre is receiving $216,700 over three years for an increase in its staffing complement to help improve behavioural change with urban wildlife;

* Braeburn Neighbourhood Place and Boys and Girls Club in Etobicoke was awarded $200,000 over three years to support new and expanded programs, including increasing access to emergency food and clothing;

* Psychology Foundation of Canada, based in Scarborough, is receiving $225,000 over three years to help build its capacity to deal with the mental health needs of newcomer families;

Those are but a sampling of the organizations that depend on these type of grants to give vital community services. Some of the grants go toward addressing obvious and immediate needs. Other funds, however, are more than a money transfer (the sports and arts grants, for example are typically more apt to be of this variety); they're investments whose benefits may not be realized immediately, but can prove ultimately to be far more valuable than the initial dollar amount.

Finally, congratulations to all the recipients (whose officials have had to sit on the news for awhile, conforming to the curiously rigid rules surrounding the reporting of the awarding decisions) and here's hoping the forthcoming investment yields a bountiful crop in the years to come.

Visit trilliumfoundation.org for a full list of grant recipients and guidelines for organizations to apply for grants.