Community Grant Recipients
August 2025
The ambitious people driving the organizations and initiatives in our community are a constant source of inspiration. We are forever grateful to live, work + play in a place where so many folks are invested in making change happen! As members, your continued support helps strengthen our community, contributing to the success of these incredible initiatives and projects.
Each quarter your Kootenay Co-op gives out four grants valued up to $500 for projects or initiatives that help strengthen and support our local community. This August we were able to give out $2,500 in community grants to 5 amazing community initiatives!
The Kaslo Community Acupuncture Society runs a bi-weekly acupuncture clinic in Kaslo, BC. Their clinic is barrier free meaning that no one is turned away for lack of funds, allowing many patients to receive treatment for chronic pain, chronic conditions, mental health support, addictions and much more. Kaslo Community Acupuncture Society serves many seniors and also people of all ages. Their community has also come to rely on us in times of tragedy to offer support in the form of pop up trauma clinics as happened last summer during the wildfire evacuations and a recent heli-skiing tragedy. This grant will help sustain Kaslo Community Acupuncture Clinic’s operational budget, specifically to cover laundry costs.
The Nelson public library has been providing services to our community for over 100 years. It’s governed by a volunteer board that represents the community it serves. The library has close to 11,000 active members and in 2024, welcomed 112,656 visitors and lent over 240,000 physical and electronic items. Library statistics demonstrate the critical service the library provides to the community. From a resource for isolated seniors to an after school safe haven for unaccompanied youth, from a language learning centre to free digital training for all, the library is a space to form community.
This grant will be used to expand the Nelson Public Library’s Library of Things. Funding from this grant will help the library in building a kit of basic home repair tools and help them expand their offerings to include bike repair tools, gardening tools and mechanic tools.
Slocan and District Technical Rescue Society
the Slocan and District Technical Rescue Society has been providing its expertise for the last 20 years for steep terrain slope rescues along Highway 6. They provide road and water rescue services for the public in the vicinity of the Slocan Valley.
This grant will be used to secure training and certifications from Rescue Canada for members of Slocan and District Technical Rescue Society.
Oxygen Art Centre was founded as the Nelson Fine Arts Centre Society in 2002 by former writing and visual arts faculty at the Kootenay School of the Arts. “Oxygen” was adopted as the artist-run centre name to underscore how essential the arts are in our lives and our communities and has come to form the organization’s ethos as a creative hub for contemporary art in the region. The Oxygen Art Centre operates in a 900 sq. ft. renovated warehouse space and serves as a studio, gallery space, residency centre and office. As of 2024, Oxygen also rents a window vitrine entitled “O2” on the Nelson Trading Co. building along Stanley Ave. and Baker St. to present a program of local, emerging artists and increase visibility of the artist-run centre and reduce barriers to access contemporary art programming.
This grant will go to support professional wages for artist instructors for their preparation and facilitation of Oxygen Art Centre’s Seed Bombs workshop series.
Seed Bombs is a new community engagement project that will feature a series of commissioned artistic “actions.” Regional artists including Tracy Fillion, Jaymie Johnson, and Marcus Denomme will each lead a workshop free and open to the public. The project reduces barriers to access arts education and supports regional artists through professional wages. It also opens Oxygen’s space and programming to a wider audience, providing enjoyable educational arts programming for the local community.
West Kootenay Climate Hub is made up of 26 groups of volunteers in the West Kootenays who are are part of the Canada-wide community climate hub. Their mission is to accelerate climate action in our region, primarily through facilitating connections, communication and collaboration among those locally engaged in addressing the climate crisis.
Kootenay Boundary Doctors and Nurses for Planetary Health is are a non-partisan group of doctors, nurses and other health professionals living and working in the Kootenays who recognize the direct relationship between planetary health and human health and wellbeing. Their mission is to urgently advocate for the rapid adoption of policies, practices and structural changes that protect and restore planetary health.
The West Kootenay Climate Hub and Kootenay Boundary Doctors and Nurses for Planetary Health teamed up this summer to provide a “BREATHE” workshop, a DIY Air Cleaner project that was developed as part of a community-based research initiative through the BC Lung Association and SFU Faculty of Health Sciences in partnership with many organizations, municipalities, and health authorities across British Columbia. BREATHE teaches community members how to build DIY air cleaners to improve their indoor air quality. The BREATHE Project helps at-risk populations mitigate the urgent impacts of climate change and increases public knowledge on the health risks of wildfire smoke exposure and extreme heat events.
This grant will go towards supporting future BREATH workshops in the community.
