A little money will go a long way for the Port Coquitlam Heritage Society, which will be using newly acquired grant money to hire its first ever employee - part-time.
PoCo Heritage was recently awarded a $20,000 grant from the city's Community Cultural Development Investment Program.
The non-profit society will use the cash to fill a part-time position to take some of the burden off volunteers.
"One of the problems that we have is that we are all volunteers and when the work increases, we don't have the time to do it all," Hubbard said. "We don't want to lose our key volunteers."
The new employee's duties will include much of the daily running of the organization, such as fundraising and looking for sponsorships. Computer literacy with skills in cataloging, digitizing, graphic design and research are a must, and other traits the society is looking for include experience in museum and archival work.
Hubbard said PoCo Heritage currently has about a 100 active volunteers, with a board of nine people who do about 80% of the work. "Some volunteers put in enormous amounts of work," he said. "There are probably two, three volunteers who put in an excess of a 1,000 work hours volunteering."
Well over a hundred applicants have submitted resumes and now Hubbard, along with the board, will be choosing potential candidates. They hope to have someone start the job in May and be available at Heritage at Leigh Square from 11 to 3 p.m. five days a week to answer questions from visitors while continuing to upgrade the society's website and online presence.
