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A flagship SaskEnergy community program called Share the Warmth is returning this winter to help Saskatchewan residents survive the colder months.
“What started nearly 30 years ago as a sweater recycling project to provide warm clothing to people in need has grown into one of SaskEnergy’s signature programs in communities across the province,” said Mark Guillet, acting president and CEO of SaskEnergy. “Share the Warmth taps into the passion of non-profit organizations dedicated to helping others, empowering them to come up with creative, effective ways to help Saskatchewan people during the coldest months.”
Share the Warmth offers cash grants up to $1,000 for grassroots community initiatives that provide food, clothing, and shelter supports to those people who don’t qualify for provincial social assistance, or for the growing number of people already on social assistance who have to choose between paying their heating bills, buying warm clothing, or feeding themselves.
Up to 40 non-profit organizations will receive the grant. Project proposals must be submitted to the SaskEnergy website. Proposals will be compared based on the creativity of their ideas to help Saskatchewan’s most vulnerable populations — documentation must be provided.
Since 2013, the Crown corporation — fully owned by the people of Saskatchewan — has distributed more than $320,000 to support about 280 projects across the province.
Local, non-profit community organizations have increasingly been called on to find ways to support Saskatchewanians through dangerous winter weather as inflationary pressure continues to rise.
Projects funded by Share the Warmth include providing people in need with slow cookers and freezer-ready meals; buying warm blankets and sheets for shelters; weekly deliveries of home-made soup; and giving winter boots, socks, toques, and gloves to the housing-insecure.
One project SaskEnergy wants to highlight for its creativity involved a group of volunteers who spent hours of their own time knitting warm clothing for the needy. The clothing is then left in a local park for vulnerable people to find.
The deadline for applications is Oct. 31.
