Towns fund four requests for Growing Winters grants

“We kept their skin in the game”

The towns of Crested Butte and Mt. Crested Butte awarded four grants totaling $12,675, after considering requests for nearly $29,000 for the Growing Winters Program, now in its second year.

Five companies or organizations with events coming up this winter applied for part or all of the $14,000 in available grant money, with each town chipping in $7,000 to build events that extend or enhance the winter season.
The Crested Butte Center for the Arts asked for $3,500 in additional marketing funds in hopes of drawing in a broader audience for its winter concert schedule. The grant committee, made up of representatives from each town, granted the Center $2,575, the cost of winter advertising in the Boulder Weekly and Applause Magazine.
“We didn’t grant the full amount, but they said the approximately $1,000 additional was their skin in the game,” Mt. Crested Butte Councilman David Clayton said. “So we kept their skin in the game.”
The Crested Butte/Mt. Crested Butte Chamber of Commerce asked for $2,000 for a 12 Days of Holiday Cheer event that kicked off with a tree lighting in Mt. Crested Butte on December 13 and in the town of Crested Butte on December 14.
The committee did not fund a request from local company Fish Productions for the cost of producing a Winter Survival Guide and Passport.
“We didn’t fund that project because we felt that there were a few things where we couldn’t really see how it all fit together,” Clayton said. “What I did do was give the applicants the committee’s comments back to them to say, ‘These are the things you would need to fill in if you wish to reapply for this program in the next funding cycle.’”
The Crested Butte Nordic Center applied for $15,000 in grant funding, more than was available for all of the requests combined, for its Nordic Experience, which is a set of Nordic skiing programs targeting skiers along the Front Range with marketing via Internet, radio and print. Their request netted them $7,200, the largest grant of the cycle.
Elk Mountain Events applied for $2,000 to help pull off a second annual CB3P (Crested Butte Pole, Pedal, Paddle) that combines uphill/downhill skiing, biking and kayak along a route that spans the Gunnison Valley. That event, scheduled for April 27, 2014, got $900.
Clayton said the remaining $1,325 in funding that wasn’t granted would stay with the towns.