Rising Above Ministries’ request for $333,000 from the City of Grande Prairie to help towards its new residential addiction treatment facility is heading to budget deliberations next month.
The total ask for the project is $5 million, to be split between the province, municipal government, donations to the non-profit, and business support. Rising Above is asking for $1 million from the Grande Prairie area, with a third of the funding coming from the City of Grande Prairie, a third from the County of Grande Prairie, and a third from the MD of Greenview.
“What we raise from the community, matched by what we get from the municipality and the provincial government, we should have our building up,” Rising Above Executive Director Mel Siggelkow says.
According to Siggelkow, the new building will accomplish two key goals for the ministry — increased access for women enrolled in classes and programs, and a 30% capacity increase for programming.
Siggelkow adds they had 400 applicants for programming and space in 2022, with only 102 gaining access due to space limitations. He says a bump in capacity can go a long way in providing more help for those who need it.
“So if you increase that by 30%, next year after the building they’ll probably bring in 130, or 135 [people], but by then we’ll probably have 500 applications, so we’re slowly trying to close that gap, but the gap in addiction treatment right now is very large.”
Fundraising efforts remain the backbone of Rising Above’s funding such as their annual banquet, radio share-a-thons, and the Rising Higher Crane event scheduled to take place on October 20th, where board member Dan Rigler will rise above the clouds for two days when he is suspended nearly 200 feet in the air in the basket of a crane.
