WECRD provides $15,000 in grants

In a meeting Feb. 19, the Western Elmore County Recreation District selected nine local youth sports groups to receive thousands of dollars in grants through a program aimed at helping those types of non-profit groups.

Celebrating its fourth anniversary, the district's grant program offered $15,000 in total funding this year, which mirrored the same level of support from last year.

Originally, these organizations requested a total of nearly $58,000 in their individual requests. Among these submissions was a new request from the Mountain Home Arts Council.

These organizations, with their combined efforts, reached out to more than 800 children and teens over the last year, the grant selection board said in a prepared statement to the recreation district board.

"We believe the distribution of these grant funds will assist these organizations in accomplishing their goals," the board added.

In 2012, the recreation district's board of directors voted to move up the grant application deadlines. The new February due date allowed the grant money to reach these youth organizations in time for their spring seasons, according to members of the board.

The youth sports and community organizations selected for this year's funding include:

- Mountain Man Wrestling Club, $3,150

- Elmore County Youth Baseball, $3,650

- Mountain Home Youth Soccer Association, $800

- Elmore County Optimist football, $3,000

- Mountain Home Youth Sports basketball program, $2,000

- Elmore County Babe Ruth Girl's Fastpitch group, $1,500

- Mountain Home Special Olympics, $200

- Mountain Home Mongrels rugby club, $200

- Mountain Home Arts Council, $500

On a unanimous vote at last week's meeting, the three-person board agreed to rename the program as the David Freer Memorial Let's Play Grant. According to board vice president Mollie Marsh, Freer was instrumental in promoting youth sports programs, and his death represents "a huge loss to this community," Marsh said.

In 2010, Freer was one of several individuals that came to the recreation district asking what more can be done to help the Mountain Home community. Their efforts led to the creation of the district's grant initiative.

The WECRD established the grant program as a way to help local clubs accomplish their goals of helping youth gain better access to sports and recreation programs in Mountain Home and surrounding communities. It's directly tied to an ongoing call to support volunteer youth sports programs in this part of the county.

To qualify, groups can't discriminate based on any player's race, creed, color, gender, national origin or religion, although youth boys and girls sports groups have a gender exception. Organizations must also promote activities free of alcohol, tobacco and drug use.

Last week's grant selections come as the recreation district awaits details on who will lead an effort to raise additional funds to start construction on a community recreation center. In October, the recreation district and Treasure Valley YMCA moved forward with plans to launch the capital campaign, which needs to raise a minimum of $600,000 to build the 37,000-square-foot building, which would house two basketball courts, an indoor running track and additional space dedicated to other fitness and recreation outlets.

Earlier this month, a selection panel narrowed down the list of potential capital campaign leaders to three individuals. According to recreation district board president Jana Borgholthaus, it's possible that all three individuals would actually lead the effort due to their specialized abilities to successfully run this type of money raising effort.

"Ideally, they would be doing what they're best at," Borgholthaus said. "There's a lot of sincerity (among these individuals) to make this happen for the Mountain Home community."

The YMCA wants to get these people working on the campaign as quickly as possible, "so get on your running shoes," she added.