By Dan Plouffe
The Ottawa Sport Council Foundation, a charitable endowment fund to promote local sport accessibility, officially launched on Nov. 1 at the inaugural Ottawa Sport Summit.
“One of the fundamental beliefs of the Ottawa Sport Council is that sport should be open and accessible to everyone,” the CBC’s Adrian Harewood said in making the formal announcement of the fund’s creation at Ben Franklin Place. “Sport has the ability and the potential to enrich lives, and absolutely no one should be excluded.”
A goal of the Foundation is to remove barriers – financial, cultural or geographical, for example – that make it challenging for individuals to have positive experiences in sport, underlines Ottawa Sport Council executive director Marcia Morris.
With a desired 25% of the endowment fund available for grants annually, the Sport Council board will identify key areas to focus on each year, the first being to establish new programs in underserviced neighbourhoods.
“The thing I really like about the endowment fund is you’re helping yourself. At the end of the day, (donations) go back into you – sporting organizations,” Morris highlights. “This was kind of on the five-year plan when we started the Sport Council, so the fact that we got that accomplished within the first year, we were really delighted.”
The endowment fund is starting with close to $10,000 in the bank, with around $3,000 raised at the Summit, from individual donations and a silent auction, which included prizes from: Carleton University, Club Excellence, City of Ottawa, Delta City Centre, Fairmont Chateau Laurier, FIFA Women’s World Cup Canada 2015, G&K Services, LiquidGym, NASH Nutrition, National Arts Centre, Olga’s Deli and Catering, Scotiabank, Senate Sports Tavern & Eatery, True Sport and Westin Ottawa.
Sport Summit ‘the start of the conversation’
Morris was very pleased overall with the day-long Summit, which brought together members of the local sport community for panel discussions, workshops and roundtable conversations on topics of mutual interest.
Several ideas emerged for what the Sport Council can offer next, such as tactical seminars on how to employ social media and marketing, grant application writing, and sport nutrition.
They’d like to bring together key stakeholders who use common facilities – such as pools, fields, gyms or arenas – to form advisory committees to determine what messages should be brought forward to the City, with the Sport Council acting as an umbrella organization.
“We need to think of how we can organize ourselves in Ottawa to come to City Hall with a coordinated approach,” Rideau-Vanier City Councillor and Sport Council board member Mathieu Fleury said to the Sport Summit audience, highlighting how the Ottawa Arts Council played a significant role in the project to revamp Arts Court. “We can have big projects that rally the sports community, and in the end, it benefits all of us.”
The Council’s major objective remains continuing to keep communication lines open, and bringing the local sports community together to accomplish work on areas of common interest.