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AGM highlights strong fiscal year for Whistler Community Services

Revenue streams provide 85 per cent of program funding
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GOING STRONG WCSS executive director Cheryl Skribe presents during the WCSS annual general meeting on Wed., June 25. Photo by Braden Dupuis

It was a good fiscal year for the Whistler Community Services Society (WCSS), punctuated by record revenues from the organization's reuse/recycle streams.

The Re-Build-It Centre, Re-Use-It Centre and the WCSS' bottle and electronic recycling program generated more than $1.1 million and provided 85 per cent of program funding in the 2013/14 fiscal year.

The numbers were presented at the WCSS' annual general meeting last week.

"It allows us to put a program in place quickly if we need it, and it allows us to focus on people," said Cheryl Skribe, executive director of the WCSS.

The independent revenue accounts for everything from rent for WCSS Re-Use-It building to the salaries of employees.

With those things taken care of, there's more emphasis on the essential programs provided by the WCSS.

"That's exciting, because people will come in and say 'I've got 500 dollars,' and we say 'pick a program,'" Skribe said.

"That 500 bucks is going to go right to that program, because the administration side is covered."

The WCSS has also been able to build a substantial capital account over the last few years — to the tune of more than $350,000 — that administrators hope to put towards the construction of a new building for its recycle programs.

"The model is right now we pay commercial space in Function Junction to a private enterprise, and we just feel that, if we work it properly, we can get away from that and save some money," said Doug Treleaven, chairman of the WCSS board of directors referring to the Re-Use-It centre.

The WCSS is looking to partner with the RMOW to pursue the project.

"It will make it better for us in the long term, and it will make the community healthier as well," Treleaven said.

Long-term goals aside, Skribe expects the next year to be just as solid as the last.

"We definitely are going to focus on stability," she said.

"It's a pretty finely-tuned machine right now, and I think we're going to enjoy that for awhile, and then deal with whatever comes to us from a place of strength."

But the thing about social services, Treleaven said, is that you never know what challenges might wait around the corner.

"Whistler's changing all the time. Next year we could be talking about something that we haven't even mentioned today," he said.

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