Niagara to host over 400 athletes for Ontario Parasport Games

NEWS RELEASE
SPORT NIAGARA
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On May 30, more than 400 athletes from Ontario will gather in the Niagara Region to compete in the Niagara 2025 Ontario Parasport Games.

Today, Sport Niagara is proud to announce the creation of the Niagara Para Games Legacy Fund in partnership with the Niagara Community Foundation. This fund will be managed by a board of those from the Niagara Region’s disability sport community with oversight by Sport Niagara and by the Niagara Community Foundation.

“Sport Niagara, as the Legacy Organization of the Niagara 2022 Canada Summer Games, is excited to have been awarded the opportunity to welcome Ontario’s Para Athletes to compete in Niagara,” stated Dan Kennedy, executive director of Sport Niagara. "Our vision is to leave a lasting and sustained legacy for our disability sport community.”

The goal of this Fund is to provide Niagara’s disability sport community with financial support towards new adaptive equipment, programs, awareness, leadership training, and inclusion education. “Sport Niagara’s vision for this Fund is really exciting,” says Jeff Tiessen, three-time Paralympian and Steering Committee lead of the Niagara 2025 Ontario Parasport Games. “From its appreciation of the disability community’s ‘Nothing For Us Without Us’ mindset, with respect to the construction of the board, to the understanding that leadership and education are also important to building adaptive and inclusive programs that motivate sport and recreation activity for life.”

The Niagara Community Foundation (NCF) has been operating for more than 22 years and is one of the 200 community foundations across Canada under the umbrella of Community Foundations of Canada. As a community foundation, NCF helps connect donors to causes, and charities to resources, through the creation of permanent endowment funds, like the Niagara Para Games Legacy Fund.

“Importantly, this partnership with the NCF will ensure that the Niagara Para Games Legacy Fund is positioned for continued growth through investment and future contributions. These contributions will be critical to the long-term success of the Fund and its programming”, stated Kennedy.

“After the success of the 2022 Canada Summer Games, our region is extremely fortunate and excited to welcome the Ontario Parasport Games to Niagara in May 2025, hosted by Sport Niagara” stated Bryan Rose, executive director of the Niagara Community Foundation. “NCF continues our proud partnership with Sport Niagara in our shared stewardship of the 2022 Games. We are honoured to extend this collaboration and for the opportunity to a Niagara Para Games Legacy Fund. The endowment fund will create annualized revenue that we know will have an enduring impact and provide vital funding for adaptive sports here in Niagara in the years to come and the generations ahead.”

The activities of this fund will be supported in part by the surplus generated from the Niagara 2025 Ontario Parasport Games and through local donations.

The Niagara 2025 Ontario Parasport Games was made possible thanks to funding and support from the Government of Ontario’s Ministry of Sport and Sport Niagara, and will give rise to new legacies of ambition and confidence that will inspire generations to come.

"On behalf of the Ontario government, I would like to extend my sincere thanks to Sport Niagara and the Niagara Community Foundation for sharing our commitment to growing opportunities for participation in sport for people of all abilities,” said Neil Lumsden, minister of Sport. “The creation of the Niagara Para Games Legacy Fund will ensure that people continue to benefit from the 2025 Ontario Parasport Games for years to come."

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