By Dominic Abassi

SAR funding marks change at the political level

Jun 6, 2016 | 4:31 PM

A bit of a financial windfall for Nanaimo Search and Rescue.

They received just over $77,000 in grants from a provincial pool of 10 million dollars.

Spokesman Rob Christopher says their volunteers will benefit from more training.

“We’re all volunteers and everybody’s got a certain amount of time they can spend doing search and rescue related activities,” said Christopher.

“Unfortunately all those activities aren’t just the searches and rescues. Funding like this means we have more time to spend on more beneficial activities and less time we have to spend on fundraising and things like that.”

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They also access funds through provincial gaming grants.

Christopher says this new money will also help them get some new gear.

He adds this type of funding is a first, noting things are changing at a political level to their benefit.

“There’s never been anything like this before, in the past our search group has had quite a bit of success accessing funds from gaming grants. The rest of the funds that we get are through the fundraising efforts of our group.”

In January, the province announced 10 million dollars in funding for the BC Search and Rescue Association.

Christopher says there’s a chance of a second round of funding in 2017.