For Immediate Release
January 18, 2005

ONTARIO GOVERNMENT GRANTS HELP THREE KINGSTON COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS
Communities in Action Fund will help Ontario get active

KINGSTON - Three organizations in Kingston are receiving Communities in Action Fund grants from the Ontario Government to increase physical activity and sport participation rates in Kingston, John Gerretsen, MPP for Kinston and the Islands, announced today on behalf of Minister of Tourism and Recreation Jim Bradley.

The three grants, funded through the Communities in Action Fund, have been allocated as follows:

• Boys and Girls Club of Greater Kingston will receive $29,000 to create a new youth sports program that will include basketball, soccer and floor hockey. The program, targeting teens between the ages of 13 and 19, will take place at night, at peak times for youth crime occurrences, and the local police officers participating as coaches, players and mentors
• Kingston Family YMCA will receive $20,857 to create a physical activity plan for Kingston
• Citizens for Safe Cycling will receive $3,500 to assist with the development of a bilingual Bicycle User Resource Handbook, a Bicycle Safety Guide and to teach 180 children between the ages of 11 and 13 to safely ride their bicycles in the community

"These Communities in Action Fund grants will create more opportunities for Kingston residents

to get active," said Gerretsen. "Providing enhanced opportunities for physical activity and community sport and recreation will help us to become healthier as a province," he added.

The multi-year $5.2 million Communities in Action Fund provides grants for new initiatives that contribute to increasing opportunities for Ontarians to be physically activity and participate in sports. The fund will help local and provincial not-for-profit organizations provide more community sport and recreation projects. Priority will be given to projects that benefit underserved groups like older adults, children and youth, girls and women, persons with disabilities, Aboriginal people, those in low-income categories and visible and ethnic minorities.

"Less than half of all Ontarians are physically active on a regular basis," said Bradley. "Through the Communities in Action Fund, we are providing funding to community projects that remove barriers preventing people from participating in sport and recreation programs."

ACTIVE2010 is the Province of Ontario's comprehensive new strategy to increase physical activity and sport participation throughout Ontario so that by the year 2010, 55 per cent of Ontarians are physically active. Find out more at www.ACTIVE2010.ca

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Contact:

John Gerretsen
MPP - Kingston and the Islands
(613) 547-2385