Thursday, January 29th 2009

By sam colbert

If you or any other young Hamiltonians you know have an idea for an action project involving youth in your community, it could be worth up to $2,500.
For the fourth straight year, the Youth Advisory Council (YAC) of the Hamilton Community Foundation (HCF)is accepting grant proposals for youth-led community action projects from anyone between the ages of 11 and 25. For encouraging young people to make change for the better in their city’s neighbourhoods, the Foundation’s YAC has raised close to $30,000 and is ready to put it to work. The application deadline is Feb. 27, 2009, and the projects are to be completed before the end of the year.

“It’s really about a belief and a support for the contribution that young people make to Hamilton,” said Sheree Meredith, Vice President of Grants and Community Initiatives at the Hamilton Community Foundation. “It’s youth looking at what youth can and want to do in our community to make it stronger.”
Recipients of the grant are to take action on a volunteer-basis. Money given by the HCF may be used toward promotional costs, materials, food and lodging for volunteers, transportation and other project expenses. Grants are worth a maximum of $2,500, and will be awarded on the condition that matching support is raised from the community, making total project fund a possible $5,000.

The resources from the community may either come in monetary form or in-kind support, which may include equipment, use of a building or vehicle, food for volunteers, tutoring or mentorship.
 The Youth Advisory Council, which is made up primarily of students in grades 10 through 12, will review each application and recommend to the HCF which ones should receive funding. “When our youth look at [an application], they look at the nature of the project and whether it’s a well thought-out one,” said Meredith. “And so they rank it on that kind of scale. You know, whether it will make a difference, whether it has been thought through, does it reflect current thinking about how to do things and do they think it’ll work.”

The grants began as a pilot project in 2005 by the Department of Canadian Heritage run through Community Foundations of Canada. Thirteen Youth Advisory Councils from various cities were selected to carry out the project. “Hamilton was one of the 13,” says Linda Hughes, Adult Advisor to Hamilton’s YAC, “Most of the involved Youth Advisory Councils got one or two applications. Hamilton got 27. So we worked on a national basis that year to run the program, and they ended up giving us extra funding because we had so many worthy projects.

“But then the funding ended from the Department of Canadian Heritage, so the Board of the Hamilton Community Foundation took a look at the program and said, ‘You people did a really good job and you funded some very worthwhile projects that might otherwise never see light.’ So they gave us funding the next year to run the same program, and we did.”
 The funding that the Foundation now supplies for the grants is equal to the amount that the YAC raises for them.

In previous years, the grants have gone toward running programs in peer mentorship, health and fitness, ecology, recreation, performance and visual arts. One of last year’s projects was “Hamilton Community Outreach,” initiated by McMaster’s own Engineers Without Borders (EWB). Using the $2,250 granted by the Hamilton Community Foundation, EWB held interactive workshops in Hamilton Junior High and Secondary schools. “They are very, very well received,” Hughes said of the workshops. “High school kids love them.”
Additional details, guidelines and the application form for the grants may be found on the Hamilton Community Foundation’s website.

“If they have an idea, something they would like to do, they should find other people who share that interest, then find an organization that would be a partner with them,” said Sheree Meredith, in reference to the involvement of McMaster students. “It can be fun and it can make a difference in the community.” The Hamilton Community Foundation was created in 1954. Its activities in the community were modest at first, awarding its first grant of $70 in 1957 to the Seniors’ Club on East Avenue. But over the last half-decade, it has steadily grown, and now has more than $120 million is assets. Every year, the Foundation works toward fulfilling its vision: “Providing Philanthropic Leadership Forever.” In addition to the many substantial grants it awards to a variety of projects, it has taken the lead of many recent community initiatives, including “Tackling Poverty Together,” the “Protecting Our Environment Together” Initiative and the Hamilton Roundtable on Poverty Reduction. “I’m exceedingly fortunate to be able to do what I can do,” Linda Hughes said of her work with the HCF. “It’s absolutely an awesome job.”

Tags: Linda Hughes, Sheree Meredith, Youth Advisory Council