Published on May 7, 2025

Neighbourhood Connection Grant

Build lasting connections with your neighbours this Summer! Whether you are planning a block party, outdoor movie night, barbeque, bike parade or a giant water fight, this grant is for you. Submit your neighbourhood event and you could be eligible for up to $500 reimbursement for your expenses.

We connected with our Community Development Coordinator Nicole Synowec to learn more about the grant, and chatted with St. Albert resident’s Vanessa and Meagan, who organized an outdoor movie night in North Ridge in 2024. Here’s what they said!

What is the neighbourhood connection grant?

Nicole S.: The neighbourhood connection grant is a low barrier way to get up to $500 to support your neighbourhood activity. The idea behind the grant is to help neighbours who want to gather with their community to do so without feeling the financial burden.

What kinds of events or activities can I use this grant for?

Nicole S.: There are so many options! Ideas include supplementing your block party, having a secondary gathering after your block party to further connect and have fun, a park picnic, soccer tournament, scavenger hunt, outdoor movie, bike parade, yard game activities, water fun, the list goes on.

Why should someone apply for this grant?

Nicole S.: Have you ever wanted to create a further connection with your neighbours but didn’t have the extra cash to supplement the gathering? This is your opportunity! We’ve had a lot of interest and great questions about this new grant opportunity and are excited to help neighbours connect with neighbours!

Tell us about the 2024 outdoor movie night event.

Vanessa: To celebrate Good Neighbor Day, North Ridge residents voted to have a family-friendly movie in the park event. We had a fantastic turn out and it was a great way to involve neighbors of all abilities to participate. It created an opportunity for people to connect and meet new neighbors, appreciate and take care of our park, and be inspired to generate more ideas for future events!

How did the neighbourhood connection grant help you?

Vanessa: The Neighbourhood Connection Grant enabled us to dream bigger than we would have as hosting an outdoor movie would have otherwise been cost-prohibitive. The majority of the grant went towards purchasing the inflatable screen, the rest of the grant was used to purchase the movie, a sandwich board to advertise the event, decorations, and supplies to host games (dodge balls, prizes, hula hoops). After the event, we donated the screen to the City of St. Albert, so it was an excellent way to pay it forward to others who want to host a similar event in future! We also could not have done this without the behind-the-scenes support we had from Nicole in Community Services.

Meagan: The grant really helped us bring out even more of our neighbourhood and reach further with our community building events. It was also nice to let the neighbour's vote on the activities and on the movies offered. It tailored the event to our neighbourhood's interests.

What advice would you give to someone interested in applying for this grant?

Vanessa: Be creative and go for it! If there's something you and your neighbours have been wanting to try, this is a fabulous opportunity to test it out! Even if you have to scale it back a bit, reach out to Community Services or other connections who can possibly help you make it work. For example, at first, we thought we could hire a professional company for our event, but soon came to realize it was well out of our price range. But after reaching out to the Community Services, together we were able to find a way to pull this off by borrowing a projector, sound system and purchasing the inflatable screen with the grant money.

Meagan: This grant made an event that we didn't think was possible when we were first quoted for rentals, possible! And now the city has a screen for all other neighbourhoods to borrow!

Learn more about the Neighbourhood Connection Grant