It’s back to the drawing board for one local dance group. On Tuesday, the Troyanda Society of Ukrainian Culture and Heritage asked the city for $9,000 in emergency relief funding to help fix a water leak. The city decided not to approve the ask. While the group has insurance, Chair Marci Lavallie says they are still short money to cover the deductible and some extra costs.
“Extra things as in the sump repair and new matting for the studio. There’s extra paint that had to be done as insurance didn’t cover everything. The extra cost that occurs when you have any sort of disaster like that.”
Troyanda has run in Grande Prairie for more than 40 years and has been in its current studio on 108 Street for around 13 years. They are one of the only Ukrainian cultural groups to own their own studio.
Over the Christmas holidays, melting snow caused a leak, destroying the specialty dance floor and leaving the studio with water damage. That caused them to close for a month and a half. With the city’s answer, Lavallie says the club will now have to look at other ways to raise the money.
“We will continue to fundraise [but] it will set us back a little bit. Hopefully, we won’t have to increase any of our memberships for the year. We’ll just push a little harder and ask the community for some help… We’ll get through this and continue to fundraise.”
The dancers were able to return to the studio on February 12th. Anyone interested in donating to the group can visit their GoFundMe page.