Winners of the ONE Prize will waste no time in getting to work on projects in New Westminster.
Donald's Market and River Market have announced the winners for this year's ONE Prize, a community fund they created for New Westminster. ONE members - customers of Donald's and River Market who sign up and use their ONE key tag when they shop - have chosen one new education program and three homegrown community projects to support this year. When ONE members shop at Donald's, the grocery store contributes one per cent of every dollar they spend to the community fund. That's added up to $6,000 in prize money for 2013.
"It's a simple and powerful idea," said Eric Siu, general manager of Donald's Market. "Alone, one per cent of a grocery bill does little, but when pooled with your neighbours' one per cent, it can support local projects that contribute to the place where we all live and work."
As part of this year's program, 36 education and community projects were submitted to ONE Prize. After a jury narrowed the field, ONE members voted for the winners.
ArtStarts on Sundays, a not-for-profit that promotes arts and creativity in children, has won the $3,000 Education Prize. It will hold free workshops for kids led by performing and visual artists at River Market on the last Sunday of every month - starting this month. On Sunday, May 26, magician Sheldon Casavant will bring his light-hearted and highly interactive magic show to the market and will teach the secrets of some magic tricks to those in attendance.
Three projects have been awarded general community grants of $1,000 each.
* Build-a-Bicyclist is a program by HUB, a non-profit organization that encourages cycling health and safety. The grant will help introduce cycling into people's day-to-day lives and equip them with a quality bike and the skills they need to ride it.
* Crafts for Kids at Heart is a monthly craft event for adults that will offer participants the opportunity to meet new people, have fun and get crafty.
* New Westminster Festival of Trees, by The Stage New Westminster, will be a fundraising display of Christmas trees set up at River Market this December to be decorated by children at local elementary schools. The festival will bring together residents, local businesses, and schools to support the food bank, Royal Columbian Hospital, and New Westminster Firefighters Society.
"In the general community project category especially, it was an incredibly tight race," said Leslie Shieh, River Market's ONE project lead. "We'd like to thank and congratulate all the applicants for their terrific ideas to make our city even better."
Anyone wanting to contribute to the ONE Prize fund - and have a say in next year's voting - can can sign up and get their key tags at a Donald's Market cashier. Members also get perks including discounts at River Market restaurants, shops, schools and businesses.
For more information, visit http://rivermarket.ca/about/one.
