KootenayBiz > Columbia Basin Trust is reaching out

SUPPORTING COMMUNITY PROJECTS: Columbia Basin Trust funds programs throughout the Columbia Basin, such as river restoration (Top) and educational programs.
—photo courtesy Columbia Basin Trust

For over 10 years, Columbia Basin Trust (CBT) has been assisting the communities in the Columbia Basin with all sorts of projects and initiatives.

CBT is currently focusing on reaching out even more to the communities and making itself more accessible.

“What we have done is we have filled our community liaison positions in our communities,” said Wally Penner, vice-president of community partnerships for CBT. “We want to connect with the community and we are hoping that these people will become household names.”

Penner believes that through community liaisons, the residents of the Basin will have easier access to the programs and initiatives available to them.
“The liaisons would be the main contacts for people to get in touch with to check out our programs or to see if they fit in with one of our programs,” said Penner.

An environmental focus
CBT is currently promoting its new Water Initiative Program through the Basin. Kindy Gosal, the water initiative representative from Golden, has been travelling around the Basin giving presentations on climate change.

“I think they have been extremely popular,” Penner said. “Hopefully from that we will come up with some things to work toward—things to change the way people do things. It’s got to be a long-term thing, but we want to suggest to people what they can do to help out and maybe get some communities to do projects to make other people aware of what can be done.”

Rachel Lucas, manager of communications in the Cranbrook office, has been working on a new brochure that CBT will be making available soon. In it are 10 suggestions for how to slow down the impacts of climate change.

“It’s just to educate people on the small things they can do,” said Lucas, “things like shopping smart, buying local fruit and vegetables and replacing your old office equipment or home appliances with Energy Star appliances.”

The brochure will also show some of the similarities in terms of climate change in the Basin to things happening on a global scale.

“We’re trying to bring it home,” said Penner. “People can see the Columbia Glacier and what it looked like a number of years ago, what it looks like now and what it could look like in the future. We tried to localize a lot of it.”

Community benefits
The environment is only one of the focuses of the many projects and initiatives CBT supports throughout the communities in the Basin.

The CBT Sponsorship Program is new this year and is for people applying for funding to put on smaller community events like festivals.

“The turnaround time for approving their application is much quicker than some of our other programs,” said Lucas.

Penner said the funding for programs has increased this year, growing from
$5 million to $7 million. He said revenues from the investment portfolio at CBT and from the power projects have increased the amount of money available to the communities.

“When we added everything up that we have done since 1996, it totalled
$35 million in benefits to the residents of the Basin,” Penner said. “Between the power projects and the direct benefit programs, we’ve put a lot of money into the Basin.”

As well, CBT has streamlined funding projects that allow residents to apply for funding under the broad categories of social, economic and environmental.

“Cleaning up a stream or doing some restoration or planting trees would be funneled through our environmental program,” Lucas said. “Then we have other programs that include literacy, scholarships and service awards.”

The latest award CBT is offering is called the College Service Award, which will be aimed at those taking part in post-secondary education.

“We haven’t announced that one yet,” said Lucas, “but the deadline to apply will be May 31 and we will be sending out a bunch of information soon.”

A new position
Penner’s position with CBT is new this year. His job has been to travel to the various communities to build on current partnerships and create new ones.

“He helps us get out into the communities,” said Lucas. “He has such an attachment to the Basin; he’s been here almost his whole life and he was just a really great fit for the position.”

Penner believes it is important to get out into the communities and create an open dialogue with the residents. He feels the only way to push CBT forward is to respond to change and listen to the needs of the communities on an individual basis.

“I think people are realizing that we’re getting out there more and listening,” Penner said. “I think in the next year our goal is to make sure that we are communicating with residents and engaging them; that we have an effective way for people to access our programs and that we are very transparent.”

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