Announcing the 2025 Vital Grants

Credit: Rising Tide Surf Society

We’re pleased to announce the recipients of the 2025 Vital Grants. This year, the CBT awarded $60,000 in funding to four inspiring projects in the region.

These grants focus on addressing regional priorities and complex challenges that influence sustainability in the Clayoquot Sound Biosphere Region. They also aim to support meaningful, longer-term collaboration between organizations, communities, and cultures.

We truly appreciate the efforts of the Vital Grants Advisory Committee, comprised of dedicated local volunteers, for their time and efforts to review each application. We would also like to thank the West Coast Sustainable Tourism Association for contributing funding and allowing the Rising Tide Surf Society to carry out their initiative. To learn more about the projects they supported directly, visit their website at https://wcsta.ca/projects.

To learn more about any of the projects below or connect with project leaders, email brooke@clayoquotbiosphere.org.

2025 Vital Grant Projects

Critical Incident Stress Management Team | Westcoast Community Resources Society

The West Coast Community Resources Society (WCRS) facilitates a Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) training for the community of ʕaaḥuusʔatḥ (Ahousaht). This vital training is adding team members in Ahousaht who provide immediate support to family members, friends, and witnesses, impacted by deaths or near-deaths in the community. The project trains Ahousaht Community members, as well as service providers that offer regular services to this community, to join their existing CISM team and allow for a more immediate response to the community after a death or near-death has occurred.

With new responders regularly meeting with an established team, WCRS can provide a blanket of support for individuals and help to reduce PTSD, depression, self-harm, and substance use. The desired outcome is to help build more resilient communities.

Feeding our Futures: mułaa Cultural Steward and Food Sovereignty Camps | Rising Tide Surf Society

This project aims to foster the healing and resilience journeys of Indigenous youth in nuučaan̓uł (Nuu-chah-nulth) territories in connection with land-based stewardship practices through a special cultural camp weekend and week-long summer camp focused on water sports and food sovereignty. Together, these initiatives weave physical skill-building with cultural learning and practice, community-building, and reciprocal connection to ancestral territories.

 This project will extend the Rising Tide Surf Society's critical summer programming, which combines culturally relevant surf instruction with integrated learning in nuučaan̓uł language, cultural knowledge, and land/water stewardship, nutritious meals, and other activities to support physical, mental, emotional, and cultural wellness. In particular, the camp and campout weekend will empower the youth more broadly in water sports and food sovereignty by fostering practical skills and experience in snorkeling and traditional food harvesting, while deepening local language learning and place-based stewardship knowledge.

By supporting healing and holistic wellbeing, fostering leadership, and strengthening connections among and within nuučaan̓uł Nations and broader local communities, this project will foster meaningful and ongoing change toward greater resilience and stewardship within the local communities, lands, and waters.

Reducing Human-Bear Conflicts | BC Conservation Foundation-WildSafeBC Program

Following the support shown at the Iisaak Sin Hay Tiic?mis (Respect All Life) meeting on January 15, 2025, an action plan and grant proposal were drafted to mitigate the number of bear reports associated with the residential cart system.

The purpose of this project is to reduce human-bear conflicts connected to the residential cart system on the West Coast. To achieve this, WildSafeBC will help replace all brass carabiners with more durable steel ones, repair damaged residential carts, and provide subsidies and support for a limited time to help residents secure their outdoor carts. In addition, the project team will work closely with District staff and the BC Conservation Officer Service to develop a compliance strategy that strengthens long-term community safety and coexistence with bears.

Shifting Frameworks | Coastal Queer Alliance

The goal of Shifting Frameworks is to positively shift the baseline of safety in the community through building allied relationships with individuals and workplaces. This project will accomplish this through a combination of workshops, resources, and education that give people the tools to shift their hearts and minds in the direction of compassion, equity, and community safety. This deep and personal (un)learning is paired with tangible actions to take in language and culture that create safer spaces for queer people. Shifting Frameworks is rooted in intersectionality; systemic barriers faced by queer people are inextricably linked to structures of racism, classism, ableism, and patriarchy. By addressing these interconnected systems through a queer lens, Shifting Frameworks offers a blueprint for structural change that benefits all marginalized people. 

Currently a workshop series, Shifting Frameworks targets workplaces to disseminate this education. Workplaces are where economic and social power is concentrated, making them a strategic entry point for shifting dominant narratives. By embedding queer safety initiatives in the local socioeconomic sphere, they create a ripple effect that extends beyond individual awareness into structural change. Unlike traditional EDI programs, Shifting Frameworks provides workplaces with more than an ‘inclusivity’ checklist; it emphasizes not only the end result (eg. checking a box) but provides the necessary education required to do equity work in culturally-informed, queer competent ways. This project is not just about inclusion; it is about rebuilding our communities with equity and safety at the core.