WCA shares grant money with community

The Wrangell Cooperative Association recently received a $50,000 grant from SEARHC. According to WCA Tribal Administrator Esther Ashton, several other communities with First Nations entities also received similar grants. The "Healthy is Here" grant is meant to help promote public health within their community.

"The way that it was defined was really left up to the tribal board to determine how they wanted to promote health and culture within our

community," Ashton said. "So the board went through a very rigorous process of trying to figure out how to distribute these funds amongst our community."

Seven organizations that the WCA determined were beneficial to health and culture in Wrangell received donations. They were:

$500 to support Wrangell's "Kids Don't Float" program, a program allowing people to borrow children's life jackets and keep their kids safe while boating;

$1,000 to the Wrangell Senior Center;

$1,000 to support the Evergreen Elementary School's Garden;

$1,000 to Wrangell Middle School and High School, to support their athletic programs;

$2,000 to the Wrangell

Fire Department to benefit Wrangell's search and rescue K9 team.

Steve Prysunka, representing the Wrangell Firefighters Association, accepted the check and explained that the money would go towards

sending two dogs to search and rescue training;

$5,000 to help start a new program being organized by Jill Privett. "Alaska Sprouts Seeds of Change" will be a group aimed at Wrangell's teenagers. Privett wants to give teens fun and educational activities that can help them later on in adulthood; and

Two donations of $2,000 and $5,000 were made to the Wrangell parks and recreation department. These donations will go towards purchasing new exercise equipment and to refurbish Kyle Angerman Park.

Ashton added that the WCA would be keeping some money for itself for several activities. One that she pointed out was to help fund WCA employees taking language and culture classes to help keep their heritage alive. She also added that, hopefully, the "Healthy is Here" grant would become something for the community to look forward to every year.

"It looks like there's potential for it to be an annual thing, so we are crossing our fingers," Ashton said. "It all depends on the health of SEARHC, but this is just an amazing shot in the arm to our community and all these wonderful programs we were able to support."