Taber Exhibition Association receives large CFEP grant

RAISE THE ROOF: MLA Grant Hunter examines a portion of roof at the Agri-Plex that suffered some damage during a recent heavy snowfall. TIMES FILE PHOTO

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By Greg Price
Taber Times
gprice@tabertimes.com

The Taber Exhibition Association (TEA) is humming with activity and a grant achieved with the help of canvassing by municipal and provincial governing bodies helped the organization receive an infusion of $121,795 for the infrastructure at the Taber Agri-Plex late last month.

Several members of Taber town council and Cardston-Taber-Warner MLA Grant Hunter were on hand to present the association with the funding through the Community Facility Enhancement Program.

Community Facility Enhancement Program (CFEP) funding provides financial assistance to acquire, build, purchase, repair, renovate, upgrade or expand sports, recreational, cultural or other related public-use community facilities.

CFEP aims to foster healthy, vibrant communities across Alberta. The program has been designed to support organizations as they take action to contribute and create opportunities for Albertans to engage with their communities.

An organization can only submit one application for a capital project per year through either CFEP or the Community Initiatives Program (CIP) Project-Based for capital funding requests.

“This association has been a great association. They have helped out the community in a lot of ways. One thing is they helped house FCSS, they stepped up to the plate, it’s about community, and they housed them (for a couple of winters),” said Hunter. “This is why I love Taber, because everyone steps up to the plate to do what needs to be done and everyone works together. This organization has always been like that. In terms of this money, the CFEP is great, it helps these organizations with the one-off costs that their budgets just wouldn’t be able to handle.”

Mother Nature was not kind to the Taber Agri-Plex in recent weeks with the heavy dumps of snow, with part of the roof that houses the lobby being damaged.

“This CFEP grant funding is perfect timing, it couldn’t be any better,” said Frank Kast, president of the Taber Exhibition Association, adding the organization is planning plenty of facelifts for the building.

Along with the roof, renovations are going to be done on the washrooms as well.

“We have already put it out for tender and we awarded the tender thinking we were only going to be fixing a leaking roof, we weren’t planning on the roof actually caving in,” said Kast. “As soon as the weather breaks, they will be on the roof putting tin on.”

For people wanting to check out the activities going on at the Taber Agri-Plex, they can log onto the Taber Exhibition Association’s Facebook page or the Website page at http://www.taberagplex.com that has a calendar of different events.

“As far as renovation stuff, it’s never ending. We are going to make a handicap-accessible washroom, so when we have to lock the lobby, anybody who is using the arena has washroom facilities. If anybody comes to an event to watch who is in a wheelchair, they will have a washroom they can use,” said Kast.

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