Grant received for blinds for the Foundation Building

The Seeley Lake Community Foundation has been awarded $2,500 through AgWest Farm Credit's Rural Community Grant program to be used towards blinds for the West Wing of the Foundation Building. 

In the unincorporated rural community of Seeley Lake, SLCF serves as a clearinghouse for community needs and opportunities, hub for resource sharing and charitable giving and mechanism for facilitating savvy, collaborative solutions to local challenges. 

SLCF has spent the last five years creating a community space in the heart of downtown Seeley Lake. In early 2019, the foundation acquired a beautiful 3,700 square-foot log building on a half-acre lot along Highway 83 and created a hub for community activities and a centralized location for residents and visitors to access important services. Several groups share the building with the foundation.

The blinds benefit the local community by helping multiple nonprofit groups that host meetings, events and training sessions at the SLCF building. The vision for the foundation building is to create an exciting and inspirational local space where nonprofits are united to meet the common economic, social, cultural and educational needs and aspirations of Seeley Lake. The space is the site for an art festival during the summer, as well as several monthly events. Event attendees sweltered in the late afternoon summer heat and light of the building's West Wing. Blinds will make a huge difference for hundreds of people. 

SLCF Executive Director Claire Muller said, "The new blinds are a huge boost for local nonprofits. Finding funding for something so utilitarian can be a challenge, but it has been hard to use the space without adequate window coverings. Thank you to AgWest for this grant to make a community space much more functional."

AgWest's Rural Community Grants provide funds to nonprofit organizations for projects that improve rural communities within Alaska, Arizona, California, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington. This includes efforts such as building or improving facilities, purchasing necessary equipment to facilitate a local program and funding capital improvements, which enhance a community's infrastructure, viability and prosperity.

For more information about the Rural Community Grant Program, please visit AgWest Rural Community Grants at https://agwestfc.com/about/community-engagement/grants/rural-community-grants

In addition to the generous AgWest grant, the blinds project also benefited from a 40% discount from Budget Blinds for the project and a $1,100 donation from an anonymous donor.

SLCF is a 501c3 nonprofit that engages philanthropy, provides leadership and enhances the quality of life and economic vitality of the Seeley Lake area. For more information, visit the SLCF website at seeleylakecommunityfoundation.org