The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.
TIMMINS – Kidd Operations is looking to maintain its practice of supporting local non-profit organizations beyond the year 2021, when their mining operations in Timmins are set to come to an end.
On Monday, the mining company announced that it and the Ontario Trillium Foundation will spend $500,000 each over the next six years to create a $1-million “legacy” endowment fund. After the mine is closed, the fund will be managed by the foundation and will be distributed as grants by a volunteer board.
According to Kidd Operations’ general manager, Tom Semadeni, the deal to create the new fund with the government-run foundation was two years in the making.
“We realized that Kidd has had a very significant involvement in the community, and we’re aware that when we leave there will be a potential void. So we want to provide a lasting legacy, where we could still provide support to the community,” said Semadeni. “We worked together with the Trillium Foundation on what would be a reasonable sized endowment that could be managed going forward. We think it’s a very significant amount of money, and we know it will help the community going forward.”
Just how long the $1 million fund will last will be up largely to the volunteer board that will control when and where the money is spent.
Although some endowment funds are meant to be kept going in perpetuity by investing them and only have the interest given out as grants, Trillium Foundation CEO Andrea Cohen-Barrack said this will not be that kind of endowment fund.
At some point, she said, the fund will run dry, but that’s okay.
“The challenge that we have is that it will be up to the volunteers to choose the projects that they think will make a difference in Timmins, and if all those projects come in Year 1, it’s possible, but not likely, that the money could be used up sooner rather than later,” said Cohen-Barrack. “One thing that both Kidd and the foundation find important is that we are investing in the right things for the Timmins community, which is more important than making sure the fund lasts a certain number of years.”
Semadeni said Kidd Operations would like to see the money spent on projects that have the potential to build the capacity of Timmins’ non-profit sector to tackle important issues in the community.
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