The future is looking a little bit brighter for Envision Counselling and their work in southeast Saskatchewan.

City Council agreed on Monday to provide some financial assistance to them in the form of a $1,000 commitment per year for 5 years. Envision approached Council a few weeks ago with a request for sponsorship, and a decision was put off until the organization showed how the rest of the southeast was supporting them. Fast forward a couple weeks, and the City saw it well to toss their hat into the ring.

"Envision is so grateful that the City has come on board to involve themselves in the sponsorship. We appreciated so much the long term commitment, because that allows us to make plans for the future knowing that there will be funds coming in," expressed Tania Andrist.

"We have been working very hard in the past couple years with our communities in the region to create this sort of network of community support. When the RM of Estevan or the RM of Weyburn donated a similar amount, we talked to the City of Estevan and said, 'please, can you join these other communities?', and they did. It's just a show of support, that the work we're doing in the community, really does help individuals. It's not always the most glamorous, but people really do seem to get some healing from our organization and so we're just so appreciative that people recognize that."

While Envision's core programming is funded by provincial coffers, the rest relies upon local support, and such will be the financial assistance from Estevan.

"As the provincial government has tightened it's belt, we've received no increase in funding, and of course our programming has continued to increase. With the resource sector kind of hitting a downturn, it has really created an increase in demand for our services," Andrist said, noting that the specific application will be directly towards education outreach and counselling.

She added that Envision is looking forward to the upcoming Savor The Southeast, the proceeds from which will this year be designated toward the counselling organization.