The Fort Rupert Curling Club’s application for a Capital Project Grant has been denied.
A letter from the Executive Director of the Community Gaming Grants Branch was received by Port Hardy Council at their Jan. 9 meeting.
“Thank you for your application for a Capital Project Grant,” stated the letter. “The volume of applications for funding was very high. I regret to inform you that your request for funding was unsuccessful and your organization has not been awarded a Capital Project Grant this year. However, unsuccessful applicants may re-apply for the same project in future funding intakes.”
“We obviously had a fairly large roof repair at the curling club, and it was something we needed to do quickly,” said Bood, adding, “We didn’t really have the opportunity to fully explore other funding avenues, but we did manage to put in a funding request to this particular group, and the curling club did a really good job in supporting us, but we got turned down.”
“We tried,” said Coun. Leightan Wishart.
“We tried,” agreed Bood, “and it didn’t work, but I think we did our job in helping the curling club have a facility that is no longer leaking.”
The Capital Project Grant was for funding up to $100,000, which would have been paid back to the District of Port Hardy, who ended up footing the entire bill for the curling club’s new roof, which came in at an estimated final cost of $260,000. If the district had chosen to tear the Fort Rupert Curling Club’s building down instead, it would have cost them roughly $560,000 to demolish it.
