The Minto and Area Philanthropic committee has awarded its first grants with funds made available by the Lloyd and Elsie Campbell estate.

 

The Campbell family left money with the Vancouver Foundation and Minto will get about $55,000 per year, every year, to hand out to various community groups and individuals.

 

The philanthropic group is made up of a cross section of community people including Gwen Wooley. “We met recently and had about a dozen applications to consider so it was nice to see so many people after grants.”

 

Wooley says they not only had grants from community groups and organizations but from individuals.

 

“In the end the local nursery school/daycare is getting funds to purchase water activity centres and some toys and the Minto Recreation Facilities group will get funding to install sliding doors at the arena. We also gave out some personal grants to help youth involved with sports.”

 

The first set of grants were $15,000 and Wooley says they still have $18,000 to disperse in 2017.

 

“Once we hand out this money then we get another $55,000 for 2018 and we start all over.”

 

Wooley says it has been said many times and it is so true it's a nice problem to have and the community will really benefit from those funds.