NEWS RELEASE
BARRIE WOMEN'S HOCKEY ASSOCIATION
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The 2022-23 hockey season is off to a great start for the Barrie Sharks, thanks in no small part to a $50,000 grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation.
The Barrie Women’s Hockey Association (BWHA) would like to thank local MPPs Doug Downey (Barrie-Springwater-Oro-Medonte), Andrea Khanjin (Barrie-Innisifil) and the Ontario Trillium Foundation (OTF) for a $50,000 grant from the Community Building Fund. The grant was used to help rebuild youth programs after the two years of the pandemic.
"The COVID-19 pandemic created the most challenging circumstances we’ve ever seen for providing youth sports, but our association families stepped up and volunteered in higher numbers than ever,” explained president Rob Emerson. “While we were able to continue providing opportunities to play hockey through this hard work, the difficult conditions also led to higher costs which strained our organizations resources.”
The support of the Ontario Trillium Foundation allowed the BWHA to continue delivering programs that were more important than ever to Barrie Sharks players, with all of the appropriate measures necessary to ensure activities were safe and healthy. The OTF’s investment was also critical to ensuring the Barrie Sharks not only survived these difficult seasons but emerged stronger than ever.
This Ontario Trillium Foundation’s support to rebuild community sports for our youth is great news for many in our community, by ensuring associations like the BWHA can continue creating opportunities for youth at all ages to enjoy team sports, especially hockey and the benefits that this sport provides for female participants on and off the ice.
The Barrie Women’s Hockey Association was founded in 1991 and is Central Ontario’s female hockey leader. The Barrie Sharks welcome players of all ages and levels through a wide rage of activities and teams that include recreational, development, competitive, high performance, and adult programs. The BWHA is also home to the Barrie Jr. Sharks team which plays in the Ontario Women’s Hockey Association’s U22 Elite League – the world’s leading female amateur hockey league. For more information about the BWHA’s programs please visit www.BWHA.ca, email [email protected], or find the Barrie Sharks on social media.
The Ontario Trillium Foundation’s mission is to build healthy and vibrant communities across Ontario. As an agency of the Government of Ontario, and one of Canada’s leading granting foundations, last year, OTF invested nearly $209 million into 2,042 community projects and partnerships, which included funding for the Government of Ontario’s Community Building Fund. Since 2020, OTF has supported Ontario’s economic recovery by helping non-profit organizations rebuild and recover from the impacts of COVID-19. Visit otf.ca to learn more.
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