DAN CEARNS The Standard
SCUGOG: The Scugog Council for the Arts (SCA) had a big reason to celebrate on Friday, March 15th. At the SCA’s gallery location in downtown Port Perry, Durham MPP Todd McCarthy announced the local organization is receiving a $153,000 grant from the Resilient Communities Fund.
This grant is being provided by the Ontario Trillium Foundation and is a two-year grant. The SCA is planning to use the grant funds to create a new strategic plan and to hire a Program Director.
“Art is so important to our lives. It is so important to our young people and our future, and the variety of artistic endeavours around this room is a testament to our wonderful community,” MPP McCarthy said.
A press release from MPP McCarthy’s office explained the “Resilient Communities Fund program was designed to help non-profit organizations and small communities build on their sustainability and move forward from the impact of the pandemic.”
MPP McCarthy stated the SCA’s grant “is a testament to the leadership of President Marion [Meyers] and the entire board of directors and all the artists here.”
“That is an injection of life and I know it will help,” Durham’s MPP added.
SCA President Marion Meyers explained the new strategic plan will run from 2025 until 2027 and said this grant will help the SCA with the creation of new programs for the community while freeing up board members to focus more efforts on the organization itself.
“This grant is essential to our continued growth in servicing Scugog. We have done a stunning amount of high quality arts and culture programming in the past few years, and we have relied almost entirely on volunteer direction and execution of all of that programming. That’s probably about 4000 volunteer hours per year. That’s a really stunning amount of volunteer time.”
Scugog Ward 2 Councillor Janna Guido stressed the importance of arts and culture in Scugog.
“We have seen over the last few years how important the arts are for bringing a community together. How desperately we need this connection with this community.”