PETER’S PLAYERS GETS $10K GRANT TO KEEP MUSIC ALIVE

GRAVENHURST — Watch for live concerts at the local drive-in this summer.

Thanks to a $10,000 grant from the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and Salesforce, Peter’s Players is putting on shows at Gravenhurst’s outdoor theatre.

Peter Swanek and his wife Michellee are among 62 grant recipients from the Canadian Business Resilience Network Small Business Relief Fund.

More than 1,100 small businesses across Canada applied for the 62 grants.

“Reviewing the applications was both heartbreaking and inspiring,” said Perrin Beatty, CCC president and CEO — whose family are longtime Gravenhurst cottagers.

“We saw how seriously small businesses across Canada have been hurt by the pandemic, but we also saw how determined these entrepreneurs are to preserve their employees’ jobs and to serve their customers and their communities. Today is a happy waypoint, not an end point, and we won’t stop finding new ways to help Canada’s businesses reopen and recover. We’ll be with them every step of the way,” said Beatty.

“We are so excited to have been selected as one of the grant recipients,” Michelle Swanek said this week. “With our theatre being closed since March and our whole livelihood dependant on group gatherings to enjoy concerts it has really made us have to think outside of the box on other ways to bring live entertainment back to Peters Players and to our community.

Peter says the money won’t only help them with equipment to put on the events. They can use it inside their Muskoka Road theatre once it is allowed to reopen after being closed for the pandemic.

The $10K grant will also be used to increase an already slick online presence and allow the theatre to be used for live recordings to be filmed inside the theatre if space cannot still be used as they approach the colder weather.

Those chosen, says the CCC, “best demonstrated their financial strain, how the business will use the grant to change or innovate, how the change or innovation will sustain the business’s recovery and allow it to prosper, and how the grant will support the role each business plays in their community.”

A complete list of the winners can be found here