Businesses with 50 employees or less, not for profit organizations, and cultural livelihoods that support First Nations communities are still able to apply for Phase II fire relief funding.
Red Cross extended the deadline to apply until May 4.
Coorindator for the Wildfire Recovery Program for Community Futures, Sue Lachance says that they have helped almost 500 businesses in the region go through the application process at no cost.
“Many businesses for time or other reasons have had a difficult time getting to filling out the application for the Red Cross program,” she says.
“So they come in here or they visit with one of our Ambassadors throughout the region and it takes approximately half an hour.”
In addition to Red Cross, Lachance says that Community Futures have several other programs available to help businesses and that others are coming in.
A recently released report by the CCCTA on the economic impact of the 2017 wildfires to the region estimated direct revenue losses to tourism-related businesses at $55 million dollars.
“Reseach that has been done and the information that we’ve gathered here through Community Futures in helping businesses, we believe that there is a lot of businesses that have had difficulty in acquiring the information.”
“Many of the businesses haven’t heard yet that the program is available,” Lachance says of the second phase of the Canadian Red Cross Support to Small Business Program,
“As a result of that we’ve seen, and I’m sure Red Cross has seen that there is definitely still the need for that support and applications still coming in. So we were very, very happy to hear that they heard the voices of the business community and they have done an extension on it which is great.”
For further information or to apply online: www.redcross.ca