Blue Cross extending community program

By Dale Woodard on February 19, 2021.

lberta Blue Cross has extended its popular COVID Community Roots Program into 2021, addressing its continued need for support.
In 2020, Alberta Blue Cross received 156 applications for the program and awarded a total of $195,000 to 45 projects in 38 different communities across Alberta.
Now, the program is now being extended to the end of June.
Across southern Alberta, more than $81,000 of this was received by 19 organizations, including Building Brains Together, Chinook Arch Regional Library, Town of Vauxhall Library, Calgary Storm Youth Basketball Association, Lethbridge College: Be Fit For Life, Medicine Hat Adaptive Sport and Recreation, Boys and Girls Club of Foothills, Longview ARC Society, Anzac Family Community Support Society, Heartland Community Association, Banff Housing Corporation, The Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies, Taber, Drumheller, Canmore and Banff.
The funded projects included South Country Treatment Centre — supporting programs for life skills, horticulture therapy and art and music for people with addictions at this residential substance abstinence facility — and the Redcliff Senior Citizens Society, which supports cleaning and sanitization products and protocols required to continue enable social events when safe to do so.
Also included was Grasslands School Division in Brooks for the “walking school bus” program, which helps kids get to school safely when busses aren’t running.
To support services in rural and remote communities, the COVID Community Roots Program offers grants of up to $5,000 for grassroots, community-led initiatives serving vulnerable populations during the pandemic.
“These projects are helping to support the social, mental, emotional and physical well-being of people and communities across Alberta through the pandemic,” says Brian Geislinger, vice-president of Corporate Relations, Alberta Blue Cross in a release.
“We’re so glad to be able to support these initiatives.”
As part of its $500,000 commitment to supporting communities through the impact of the pandemic and low energy prices on the provincial economy, Alberta Blue Cross created the COVID Community Roots Program in mid-2020.
The program is funded through its community foundation and is administered in partnerships with the Alberta Recreation and Parks Association and Communities Choosewell, who help promote the program and review applications.
 The application process for the 2021 COVID Community Roots Program opens March 1.
Unregistered organizations may apply with a partner organization.
Interested organizations can find more information and apply online at ab.bluecross.ca/aboutus/community-roots. 
Organizations eligible to apply include non-profits, charities, municipalities, First Nations communities and Metis Settlements.

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