REGINA - A new sponsorship from SaskGaming will provide $25,000 towards the Al Ritchie Community Association (ARCA) and its various programs.
Denis Simard, executive director of ARCA, explained part of the money is going towards "the Second Chance [Community] Shop, [which] is actually our free clothing store where people get to come in every single day and collect clothing."
Simard mentioned the amount of clothing taken from the shop over the past few years has "blown up." A few years ago, ARCA was giving away a few 100 pounds of clothing on the side. Now, that number is expected to be around 70,000 pounds this year.
These numbers go along with ARCA serving 3,000 to 4,000 families a month now, which had jumped from only serving 50 families a month years ago.
This has forced ARCA to turn away people at times for specific clothing items, like coats, which fly off their shelves quickly.
Another part of the sponsorship will go towards their adult and senior program, which Simard explained "is an opportunity to keep people active, to keep seniors out[side] and [also is] to make sure that they're part of our community, whether that's [playing] yoga or pickleball."
Reporters asked Simard about ARCA’s annual budget and need for funding. He explained ARCA is "somewhere in that $300,000 to $400,000 a year [range for our budget] and we never have enough."
Simard later stated when you factor in all the requests that come in from the community and cost those out, it adds up to around $1.5 million worth of things ARCA has to do.
With this grant, Simard said, "[I was] so thankful to know that it's one less thing we need to worry about [regarding all the programs we run.]"
Blaine Pilatzke, SaskGaming President and CEO, explained their decision to sponsor ARCA.
"In terms of our community giving program, we have a number of pillars, and one of the pillars we have is community support. We always take into consideration our employees' wishes as well, and our employees' live in this neighbourhood. They work here [at ARCA], and they play here as well."
The $25,000 is from SaskGaming’s annual sponsorship pool of $100,000. The pool is divided between their two casinos, which are Casino Regina and Casino Moose Jaw. It’s worth noting this sponsorship had no correlation to ARCA losing out on a recent grant.
Peavey Mart fiasco
After it was announced that Peavey Mart was closing all their retail stores, ARCA themselves were affected by the news. ARCA was supposed to receive a $10,000 grant from the hardware store, which would have gone towards their community garden project, food nutrition programs and food security programs.
Simard was asked by reporters about having to find a way to make up the funding. He said a local organization, which asked to remain anonymous, stepped up and helped ARCA replace the $10,000 that was lost from the grant.
Simard also said, "we've had local farmers call us and say, 'we heard that this was for your garden project. Well, I've got a truck full of manure. When could I drive it over?’ And so it's offered sort of other opportunities [as well]."
With the aid, Simard said he believes they will be okay for revitalizing the gardens this year. However, he admitted, "I'm still writing grants. I'm still fighting [for] new opportunities. We're still pushing to see what we can do and build that up into something that's really sustainable, including wanting to have our gardens feed the food pantry directly."
When asked about the amount of food that will be supplied from the gardens, Simard said they’re in the process of looking at those numbers
