Do the arts matter to the taxpayers of South Surrey?<\/p>\n
The board and members of the Semiahmoo Arts Society (SAS) are betting it does \u2013 particularly in the context of the rapidly approaching municipal election.<\/p>\n
Indeed \u2013 as society executive director Amanda Silvers suggests \u2013 voters who value the arts as a defining element of Peninsula culture should be asking where candidates stand on what, the society feels, are continuing \u201cinequities\u201d in City of Surrey funding of SAS.<\/p>\n
These inequities \u2013 according to a July letter to council from the society board, and a petition being circulated in the community \u2013 threaten the very existence of SAS beyond the end of next year, when grant funding that has been keeping it afloat is due to expire. <\/p>\n
The petition states the case baldly: \u201cSAS is facing bankruptcy at the end of 2027, after more than 53 years of serving the community.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the result of the South receiving almost no arts tax dollar investment into the South Surrey community compared with the rest of Surrey.\u201d<\/p>\n
A statement from The City of Surrey disputes this characterization, saying that staff have been \u201cin regular contact with the Semiahmoo Arts Society in regard to a new operating agreement and funding requests.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe organization currently receives numerous in-kind services from the City valued in the range of $175,000, as well as a cash grant of $25,000, the maximum amount available through the cultural grants program,\u201d the statement says.<\/p>\n
Originally the Community Arts Council of White Rock and District, the organization was founded in 1974. The partnership with the City of Surrey dates back to 2009.<\/p>\n
But despite the fact the society contributes support for artists, and arts programming and services for some 111,000 South Surrey residents \u2013 including operating the 5000 sq. ft. of arts space at the South Surrey Recreation and Arts Centre, which it has done since 2014 \u2013 the City of Surrey\u2019s financial contribution to it remains \u201cnegligible\u201d.<\/p>\n
The original operating agreement expired in 2014, and despite society and city staff negotiations since the beginning of this year, there has been \u201cno meaningful progress\u201d the society says.<\/p>\n
The city statement says, however, that staff have recommended the organization apply to the City\u2019s Community Grants program.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe City has received Semiahmoo Arts\u2019 application and will review it as part of the grant evaluation process, with recommendations brought forward to Council for consideration through the 2027 budget process,\u201d it says.<\/p>\n
The society says, however, that certain facts are incontrovertible.<\/p>\n
According to the petition, \u201cthe arts in South Surrey receive less than one percent of the City\u2019s annual operating budget for arts and culture despite being home to 16 per cent of Surrey\u2019s population \u2013 almost the entire $10.7 million budget is spent north of Highway No. 10.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe really need the city to support the arts in South Surrey, in alignment with the way other communities \u2013 such as Chilliwack, Port Moody and Coquitlam \u2013 support their relevant societies,\u201d said Silvers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe community deserves the investment of tax dollars.\u201d <\/p>\n
She noted that the city\u2019s $25,000 operating support grant for 2026 amounts to less than five per cent of the $506,400 total available funding to 86 groups \u2013 which involve a broad spectrum of other cultural and heritage activities throughout Surrey, in addition to the arts.<\/p>\n
And this represents only three per cent of the society\u2019s annual operating costs \u2013 while in other communities operating agreements with similar organizations typically fund as much as 40 per cent of such costs, a standard that has been generally established in the region since the 1990s.<\/p>\n
The current level of operations support \u2013 which works out to some 23 cents per resident \u2013 compares poorly, for example, with the $8.66 per resident received by the Port Moody Arts Society, which operates the PoMo Arts Centre on a service model almost identical to that SAS provides for Surrey.<\/p>\n
Over the last decade \u2013 as the society\u2019s board pointed out in its letter to council \u2013 SAS has \u201csignificantly grown the services we provide to the community.\u201d<\/p>\n
What started as an arts council simply supporting local practising artists and fostering opportunities to share their work with the community, now extends to highly-rated and accessible art education programs open to everybody, it noted.<\/p>\n
In 2025, SAS delivered 227 classes, 40 workshops, 89 low-cost or free events and a total of 11 exhibitions. It employed 21 practicing local artists and art educators as instructors.<\/p>\n
It also worked in partnership with UNITI, Sources, Brella and the Crescent Housing Society, while providing program subsidies for children, seniors, low-income residents and adults living with developmental disabilities.<\/p>\n
During a recent tour of the South Surrey Recreation and Arts Centre, Silvers pointed out two valued programs that may fly under the radar of some, but are an example of SAS\u2019 connection to the Peninsula community.<\/p>\n
One is the \u2018Messy Babies\u2019 art program conducted by Nina Mudry, which allows mothers a chance to share a first exploration of art with their babes-in-arms and toddlers in a safe, mess-proof environment \u2013 a crucial developmental step with recognized advantages for very young children (and Mudry also offers more technique-based sessions for ages three to five and six to 12).<\/p>\n
Meanwhile the centre\u2019s highly popular 14 wheel pottery studio offers five five-hour drop-ins per week (more than 860 last year) for children six and up \u2013 plus adults and seniors of all skill levels \u2013 currently guided by Haley Hebert, with assistance from facility operations coordinator Emmanuelle Culp.<\/p>\n
Creating this level of service for the community has not come without a significant cost, the society board notes in its letter.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe finished several years with large deficits, drained $81K of our investment savings in the first two years of operation, have now had six executive directors, been routinely forced to lay off much-needed staff positions, and struggle to recruit and retain staff because we do not have sustained funding to offer secure employment,\u201d it says.<\/p>\n
\u201cStaff routinely get burnt out because the requirements of their jobs are overwhelming. We have never had the funding to build and sustain the staff resources needed to flourish.\u201d<\/p>\n
Running a community arts space is stretching the resources of the society to the limit, Silvers said, while it must still struggle to fulfil the basic functions of an area arts council.<\/p>\n
The unsung angel for SAS has been a three-year, $100,000 per year seed grant from the Peace Arch Hospital and Community Health Foundation, recognizing the health benefits and community connectedness the arts foster.<\/p>\n
This saved SAS from bankruptcy in 2025, but, as Silvers pointed out, it cannot reasonably be expected to continue after the seed grant term expires at the end of 2027.<\/p>\n
What would solve the current dilemma \u2013 and save the SAS from being dissolved next year?<\/p>\n
The answer is straightforward, SAS argues \u2013 fair operational funding from the City. <\/p>\n
\u201cSAS would finally be able to resource a sustainable operational function to support community programs and services, and build additional funding streams, thereby continuing to deliver arts services to the community at a value exceeding what the City could do on its own.\u201d<\/p>\n
Silvers noted the success of the recent auction of paintings from the SAS\u2019 plein-air Paint The Town event \u2013 which raised some $6,000 for the cause.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe opportunity (to raise other funding) is here \u2013 but we need fair and equitable funding as well,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Do the arts matter to the taxpayers of South Surrey? The board and members of the Semiahmoo Arts…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":932329,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194299],"tags":[49,48,87674],"class_list":["post-932328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-surrey","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-surrey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/932328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=932328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/932328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/932329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=932328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=932328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=932328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}