A grant of $122,000 will provide support and mentorship to growing local non-profit organizations over the next two years.
“I am pleased that with the help of this funding, our community partners will be able to enhance their services and continue to offer high quality programs for families in Ottawa,” said Ottawa West-Neapean MPP Bob Chiarelli in a news release.
Jewish Family Services of Ottawa and the Social Planning Council of Ottawa will receive the grant, which is provided by the Ontario Trillium Foundation.
Dianne Urquhart, executive director of the Social Planning Council of Ottawa, said the partnership between the two organizations to provide mentorship and support services makes sense.
“We’ve been working with ethno-cultural groups for six years and this project came out of our work and Jewish Family Services’ work because we're working with these groups and realized that some of these groups were ready to significantly expand,” said Urquhart.
The money will help five other organizations — Ottawa Somaliland community services, Canada Nepal Solidarity for Peace, Cooperation Integration Canada, La Coopérative Enseignants Pas à Pas, and the Shia Muslim community.
The Social Planning Council of Ottawa, which work with 24 different groups, tends to lay the groundwork with organizations, while Jewish Family Services has experience working more intensely with a few groups who are ready to grow, according to Urquhart.
“This grant will allow us to provide more one-on-one intensive support and mentoring activities, and will facilitate collaboration with other community partners,” said Mark Zarecki, executive director of Jewish Family Services of Ottawa in the news release.
“I think the key thing to recognize is that there are dozens of these groups in Ottawa that are playing a really important role in our community helping youths, isolated seniors, helping people get jobs and they are really an unrecognized group of volunteers,” said Urquhart.
In addition to funding the support and mentorship of non-profit organizations, a portion of the grant will be used to help with the cost of a part-time co-ordinator and provide funding to new programs and services for at-risk youth and single parents in Ottawa.