Deltassist and Dan’s Legacy Foundation are among the Delta organizations who received funding this week through the provincial Civil Forfeiture Crime Prevention and Remediation grant program.
In total, 221 projects received one-time grants for projects led by not-for-profits, local governments, school districts and more. The funding comes out to more than $8.6 million province-wide.
“Over the past 15 years, most civil forfeiture cases have been related to drug, gang and organized crime. In turn, it's appropriate that once again, some of the proceeds are going into gang prevention,” said Mike Farnworth, Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General. "These annual grants support life-changing and even life-saving work through supporting the prevention of gang involvement and of gender-based violence and violence against women.”
This year, 34 projects related to crime prevention, including projects focused on educating youth on the impacts of gang violence, are receiving $2.2 million. These projects are aimed to make B.C.'s communities safer and assist high-risk youth in providing them with the tools and supports they need to make positive choices to avoid a life of gang and drug violence.
Deltassist’s funding, which is $30,000 will go towards domestic violence prevention and intervention programming. According to a summary of the project, the objective of the program will support changes in behavior for perpetrators of domestic violence, reduce the number of incidents of domestic violence, increase women and children’s safety and address the need for early intervention in the cycle of violence to change sentencing/conviction in Delta or surrounding communities such as Langley, Surrey, New Westminster or Richmond.
The Dan’s Legacy Foundation funding, which is also $30,000, will go towards Indigenous healing, a project targeted at approximately 125 at-risk youth in East Vancouver and the Downtown Eastside who have been dramatically affected by childhood trauma and are at high-risk for homelessness, lifelong mental health issues, entrenched addiction, gang recruitment, racial profiling, overdose and suicide.
The program will link youth to trauma and culturally informed therapists as well as other partner organizations in the community to provide wrap-around support.
