Neighbourhood Small Grants - Deadlines April 30th/May 18th

Dear Grandview-Woodlanders,

Apologies for inaccurate information posted earlier with regards to Neighbourhood Small Grants - I had posted a discussion saying that the deadline to apply was March 31st, when in fact that was for a separate grant program (Hastings North's Community Small Grants program). Now I am happy to announce that the Neighbourhood Small Grants are open for applications for real, and the deadlines are April 30th (east of Commercial Drive) and May 18th (west of the Drive).

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Neighbourhood Small Grants, they are grants of up to $500 that are administered by the neighbourhood houses, with the funds coming from the Vancouver Foundation. You can use the grants for pretty much any community event or project imaginable - as long as it does something to bring people in your neighbourhood together or it make it a better place. The grant applications are extremely easy to fill out (all they need is a paragraph describing what you intend to do). Each application needs to be sponsored by two people who live in the appropriate catchment area. 

Last year, VV members in Kits were really on top of this and ended up getting a total of $4500 in grants that they used for projects ranging from collaborative gardens to a canning collective to block parties. The seed money for the Styro-Free Challenge project also came from a neighbourhood small grant! Only individuals can apply for the grants, not organisations, but this is a perfect opportunity for VV members to apply for grants that they can use towards Transition-related projects!

Where to apply depends on which part of Grandview-Woodland you live in. Those who live east of Commercial need to apply for the East Vancouver Neighbourhood Small Grants, . The rest of those who live west of Commercial need to apply under the Carnegie/Raycam/Strathcona program.

And good news: while there use to be a two-block strip north of 1st Ave but between Commercial and Victoria that was not covered by any program, this oversight has now been fixed and all residents of Grandview-Woodland are now elligible to apply for the grants!

Here's a reminder of some ideas that have come up so far: 

-Alyssa could lead us in a fermenting workshop (by the way, I've made a great connection with the program coordinator of the Lion's Den Recreation Centre at Commercial and Adanac recently, and as a result we now have access to a spacious kitchen facility that would be perfect for this and other cooking/preserving workshops!)

-We have a few people with experience in natural/cob building among us, so another idea is to construct an earth oven somewhere. Maybe even in our new Woodland Park Community Garden?

-We could get someone knowledgeable about foraging to lead us in a foraging workshop/expedition

-We could construct a community root cellar so that people can extend the period over which they can consume self-grown food.

-We could plant a food forest (perhaps in Salsbury Park?)

-Our neighbour Sasha Liang has also offered some workshops she could teach, including: