In-store campaign, new stamp launched with 100 groups slated to receive $1.2M in grants
As the Canada Post Community Foundation launches its 2021 fundraising campaign, 100 organizations across the country have been informed they will receive much-needed funding to support their efforts to improve the lives of Canadian children and youth.
For this year, $1.2 million in grants have been awarded to grassroots organizations from every province and territory. Among this year’s grants, 17 of them (totalling about $270,000) will go to programs supporting Indigenous youth.
“Canada Post is committed to fostering reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, including through funding of community programs that support Indigenous children and youth,” reads a statement the Crown corporation released earlier this week.
With more grant applications coming in each year, the foundation raises money through customer donations in post offices, employee payroll deductions and the sale of an annual semi-postal stamp.
This year’s semi-postal, issued on Sept. 20, will raise funds for distribution in 2022.
Next year’s grant application period opens in March.
Stamps can be purchased and donations made at local post offices, with funds going to organizations operating in the province or territory in which they are raised.
Canada’s first semi-postal stamps were issued to help pay for Canada’s first Olympic Games, hosted by Montréal in 1976.
$11M SINCE 2012
Established in 2012, the Canada Post Community Foundation is a registered charity operating at arm’s length from the Crown corporation.
It has granted $11 million to more than 1,000 child- and youth-focused initiatives, including literacy and language programs; youth outreach services; projects supporting Indigenous youth; gender and sexual diversity programs; arts and recreation projects; special education programs; childhood health programs; anti-bullying initiatives; and mentoring programs.
From 2008-11, before Canada Post launched the Community Foundation, the Crown corporation issued a series of semi-postal stamps to support its new Canada Post Foundation for Mental Health.
The only other Canadian semi-postals were issued between 1974 and 1976 (Scott #B1- B12) to support the Olympic Games in Montréal – the first North American semi-postal issues – plus in 1996 to support literacy in Canada (SC #B13).
Production of Canada’s modern semi-postals has been low, starting at 10 million in 2012 and dropping to about a 10th of that amount in recent years.