The Community Foundation Grey Bruce is marking it’s 15th year.
Executive Director Roberta Brignell says they’re celebrating by handing out 70-thousand dollars in grants to 57 not-for-profit groups across the region.
Brignell says that amount is down from years past, when they’ve topped 100-thousand dollars.
She says it’s not because of a drop in donations, but because returns on investments are down.
Brignell says like many groups across Canada, the Foundation was actually in the position of having no money available to hand out this year.
But a bequest of one million dollars came in from the estate of Betty McKay.
Brignell says the bequest came with no strings attached and while they endowed most of it so the funds remain in perpetuity, they were able to skim some off for this year’s grants.
Brignell says they always make sure to focus on any areas in the community facing crisis.
She says this year those areas are food banks and affordable housing, so groups like Habitat For Humanity received funding.
Brignell says the Foundation has reached 3.5 million in assets, and they hope to increase that to 5 million by 2010.
Brignell relates former Mayor Ovid Jackson brought forth the idea of a community foundation in 1994.