Federal funding to assist charities through COVID-19 is coming to Queens.<\/p>\n
The United Way of Lunenburg and Queens County is now accepting applications from registered charities to help community members hit hardest by the coronavirus.<\/p>\n
Coordinator Michael Graves says the United Way is looking for established organizations within the community to identify the needs and step forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey know the ones that are vulnerable, they know where the needs are. This is government money, we want to be responsible stewards of that money. We want to make sure it goes to the right people. We\u2019re not really too interested in funding programs that might be deemed frivolous.\u201d<\/p>\n
The United Way of Lunenburg Queens has been allocated $180,000 from the Government of Canada Emergency Community Support Fund to distribute in the region.<\/p>\n
Funding requests of less than $5,000 will be reviewed by the United Way board, while a volunteer panel will assess requests greater than $5,000 before sending them along to the board for final approval.<\/p>\n
Graves is hoping to use the trust local organizations have built within the community to accomplish the federal government\u2019s mandate of reaching some of Canada\u2019s most vulnerable groups.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe LGBTQ community, the Mi\u2019kmaq community as well as the foreign workers, as an example. But, kids, youth, families, seniors, people who are vulnerable, people who are homeless. There\u2019s a wide variety of people that they want us to focus on and what we do is we work with the partners, and the partners is the community.\u201d<\/p>\n
Graves would like to see applications that will carry on and help the underserved in the region long after COVID-19 money dries up.<\/p>\n
He says the United Way has been supporting many programs in Queens already such as the Food Bank and the Better, Together Family Resource Centre.<\/p>\n
Graves says they recently partnered with VON to identify 160 isolated seniors in Queens county.<\/p>\n
The VON not only brings meals to the seniors homes, they sit and visit to check on the seniors to ensure they\u2019re doing ok.<\/p>\n
Graves says because the United Way only gets so much money each year, it\u2019s ongoing programs like those he would like to see make use of the federal funding.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor many organizations, we\u2019re the difference between a good program and a great program and in a number of cases, no programming at all, like, there wouldn\u2019t be a program if it wasn\u2019t for United Way funding. So, we want to make sure that if we fund something, and people, and in this particular case, it\u2019s seniors, if they become reliant on it, we want them to continue to have the ability to access the service.\u201d<\/p>\n
The United Way will be accepting applications from registered charities until July 17 or until the money runs out.<\/p>\n