Quinte West City Council approved a motion for 2026 Community Fund Grant applications in the amount of nearly $61,000 at its meeting on Wednesday.
As part of the motion, council removed a section that would have allowed for grant applications past the September 2025 deadline that would be analyzed on a case-by-case basis for up to a maximum of $5,000 per recipient.
Council had previously allocated a total of $111,050 for the Community Fund Grant as part of the 2026 budget.
Among the applications received that were approved for the full $5,000 were Quinte Little Theatre, Peer Support South East Ontario, Volunteer and Information HPE, The Children’s Foundation, Art Quinte West Inc., These 4 Walls, and Animal Rescue Krew.
Other applications saw a reduced amount granted from what was proposed, or were altogether rejected.
A total of $60,968.50 was approved.
You can see the full list of applications for 2026 the city received at Quinte West’s website.
Initially, the motion had proposed that applications could still be made past the September 2025 deadline on a case-by-case basis.
Director of Community Services and Strategic Partnerships, Jaclyn Grimmon, explained the process for post-deadline applications.
“If an applicant has applied and has been unsuccessful with their application, typically, there’s reasons for that based on eligibility,” Grimmon explained.
“If they have another project that they are considering, that may better qualify for eligibility under the program. Certainly, it’s probably best for them to reach out to us before just resubmitting an application, so that we can work with them to ensure any future applications are as successful as possible and meet the criteria within the policy.”
Grimmon noted that they could potentially look at special projects that had popped up or changes to applications that would better fit the criteria laid out by the city.
Councillor Karen Sharpe said she was not in support of allowing more projects to be looked at past the deadline.
“We have a deadline. People missed it. Unfortunate, but it just adds confusion,” Councillor Karen Sharpe told council.
“We’ve been through this with our past committees that dealt with grants, and it was very difficult, and we made the decisions based upon the criteria, and glad that staff had vetted them so thoroughly, totally support that, I don’t like the idea of someone coming in late.”
Councillors Michael Kotsovos, Lynda Reid and Shelley Stedall echoed Councillor Sharpe’s comments, saying that the city needs to stick with a strict deadline.
The original motion was defeated by council, with a new motion made that would remove the stipulation of past deadline applications.
Council approved the new motion.
