Nearly three years after Cambridge councillors approved a $70,000 grant for a program aimed at providing meals and community connection for those in need, the initiative remains stalled, and the city admits it failed to follow up until recently after implementing a process to track where grant money goes and how it's spent.
The Cambridge Community Table was pitched to the city in 2019 as an innovative, grassroots program for community development using a communal dining approach.
During an Oct. 15, 2019 council meeting, executive director of the Kinbridge Community Association, Joe-Ann McComb, successfully pitched the concept for the neighbourhood table. It was later approved, with the money coming out of the city's Tax Rate Stabilization Reserve fund.
The following month McComb presented the concept to the Region of Waterloo and successfully secured a $50,000 Community Innovation Grant to get the program off the ground.
But despite securing $120,000 in grant funding, the founders faced almost immediate delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
As it turns out, the money is being held until the program can get up and running after struggling to launch during the pandemic due to restrictions on social gatherings.
"We received confirmation of the funding from the city in late 2019 and our first meal was to go out in May 1 of 2020," McComb said.
"This program involves a lot of different partners and through the pandemic, every time we went to start it, groups were at various capacity limits for social gatherings."
Kinbridge is taking responsibility for hiring and managing the program, according to the Cambridge Neighbourhood Table website.
McComb assures the money is being held by Kinbridge with plans of launching the program in 2023.
"We’ve just hired our new manager of the program and we're holding the money," she said.
"There were a lot of organizations doing free meals during the pandemic, but this is more than that. It's about community connection. We're hoping to get the first meal out around the same time in May."
While the pandemic's impact on the program's launch may be justified, the situation begged the question as to what took the city so long to begin tracking when and how grant money is spent.
When Sheryl Ayres, chief financial officer for the City of Cambridge, began working for the city in 2019, she immediately noticed an issue with the city's grant tracking process, or lack thereof.
“When I started working at the city in 2019 I acknowledged a gap in our processes to ensure funds were spent by external groups as intended,” Ayres said in an email to CambridgeToday.
“In order to close this gap I moved forward with reviewing and updating the city’s policy for community grants. This process involved reviewing other municipalities' policies and developing a policy and program for Cambridge based on best practices found in other municipalities.”
The result was the Community Grants Program, which was approved by council in September 2021.
Ayres also assisted in the creation of what is now known as the Outcomes Reporting Form. The form is designed to create greater accountability around how funds are spent and track the metrics of what was achieved through the program the money was to be used towards.
Groups who received funds from the city are now required to submit the form by the end of the year in which the money was granted.
But since the process was established and approved for use in 2022, the city is only now receiving information back on how money has been spent.
Ayres is confident the program and the reporting form will help ensure funds are spent appropriately within a reasonable amount of time.
“Community grants is certainly an area where the city recognized that greater accountability needed to be put in place,” she said.
“That has been achieved through the policy that has been approved by council.”
The Region of Waterloo did not respond when asked about their $50,000 grant to the Cambridge Community Table; if it was paid out and how it tracks what the funds are used for.
More information on the City of Cambridge’s Community Grants Program and the Outcome Reporting form can be found at cambridge.ca.
