Tough decisions ahead for Blades despite strong start to season
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The Blades are third in the eastern conference with a record of 11-5-1-1.
After what was a successful Grey Cup in Regina in 2022, the CFL’s Saskatchewan Roughriders want to put some of the money they made back into the community.
On Monday, the Riders announced they’re launching what is called the Grey Cup Festival Legacy Grant Program.
The plan of the program is to encourage municipalities, Indigenous communities and charitable organizations to apply for the grants by supporting mental health, healthy lifestyles and youth-based programing.
Up to $50,000 is available for each application and $250,000 is available in total.
Jonathan Huntington is the co-chair of this past season’s Grey Cup provincial outreach committee. While there have been programs like this from past Grey Cups, this is the first time it has been done on a provincial scale.
“We wanted to make sure that this legacy wasn’t just in Regina, but it was around the (entire) province,” he stated. “One of the best ways to do this, we felt, was through a grant program. We’re unaware of another Grey Cup that has done it this way.
“We started this Grey Cup Festival and one of the first things we did was have a community celebration tour with an online application program last spring. When we opened the doors to that, we had more than 60 communities apply and there was a $25,000 grant tied to the winning communities.
“We know there’s a huge appetite for this and we think we’ll get flooded with applications.”
Besides working on the provincial outreach committee, Huntington works at Cameco. He noted his company did a similar thing when it came to allowing municipalities and organizations from across the province to apply for mental health grants.
He says the response Cameco saw for that blew the company away.
“We just did a mental health grant application program in November. To give you a sense of it, we had 91 applications for $2.6 million in funding,” he explained. “That shows you the need in this province. The need is astronomical. We think this is a great way to leave a Grey Cup legacy in this province.”
Applications for the program can be filled out by clicking here.
Huntington noted that while anyone in the province can apply for the grants, organizers aren’t making it mandatory for every corner of the province to get the funds.
He says the committee wants the money going to the best applicants out there.
“We’re going to take the best applications that come in; it’s just that simple,” he said. “There will be a scoring matrix just like we did with the Grey Cup Festival celebration tour.”
He emphasized the importance of mental health and having communities across the province supporting it.
“There’s a significant need in the community for mental health. There is no doubt that there are different segments of this population that still aren’t even talking about mental health,” he said.
“I think one of the great parts about this program is communities will apply for dollars and likely tie them to a mental health program and I think you’ll start to see people come out of the woodwork and start talking about their situation or starting to identify as having a mental health challenge.”