Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents - The 2023 MicroGrants 4 Neighbours program is focusing on projects that promote youth empowerment, but also encourages any other projects to apply.

Successful applicants will receive grants of between $50 to $500 and do not have to return any unused funds.

While Cortes Island has had microgrant programs for the past 10 years, their nature changed after the Cortes Island Community Foundation took over in 2021.

Cortes Currents asked Isabella McKnight what is different about the MicroGrants 4 Neighbours program.

“We can now give small amounts of money directly to Cortes neighbours and community members. We want to empower Cortes Island neighbors to do projects that they want to do or that they want to participate in. So for example, if you've always wanted to learn how to carve. You could run a workshop if you had the knowledge how to carve for beginners or you could hire somebody in the community who had that knowledge,” she said.

“We've only been open for about two weeks, but I love reviewing the applications that come in.”

CC: Can you tell us anything about the projects that are coming in?

IK: “I can't talk about them quite yet, but it's going great.”

CC: Tell us some highlights from last season.

IK: “We had over 40 projects that we funded in 2021. There was an Indigenous language course, some classes which were just this great way to engage the community and retain language and work towards reconciliation as well. There was a free library project. Esther worked on building these little wooden libraries that were put up around the island, that have books that people don't want and they switch out and people can borrow them and put them back and put in old books and they're really cute and sunny and beautiful.”

CC: What kinds of challenges have you faced?

IK: “The biggest challenge is just deciding which of the amazing projects to run, because there's so many, and we don't like to say no to the projects because every project that somebody submits impacts a different niche of the community in a positive way. So having to decide or choose which ones to fund is really challenging.”

“Luckily, we have an amazing community jury that we switch every year. So we get neighbors who might not necessarily see eye to eye or have much in common debating and discussing which projects to fund, which really cool to see going on in the community.”