For the past three years, OSCIA has received financial support through the OMAFRA Grassroots Growth Program.  These funds have helped support activities at the local/regional level.  The current funding agreement expires at the end of March.  Last August, OSCIA made a submission for further funding through this program and only recently  learned that the submission was unsuccessful.

OSCIA has received, not only, financial support but technical support from OMAFRA.  While the funding is ending, the expectation that the technical contributions received from the Ministry specialists will continue.  Ministry officials are continuing to discuss the situation and explore other possible funding opportunities, but this could take some time.

The province is striving to secure money to support the Regional Communication and Tier One Grants.  Unfortunately, until another cost-share funding source can be secured, the Tier Two grant that supports the 3-year applied research projects will be on hold. There will be no opportunities for new Tier Two projects to be initiated this Spring.

The Board of Directors remains committed to finding solutions and welcomes suggestions from the membership, and sincerely hopes individuals will understand and support the decisions made.