South Surrey arts are shortchanged, society says

Do the arts matter to South Surrey taxpayers? The board and members of the Semiahmoo Arts Society (SAS) say the question matters as the municipal election approaches. Executive director Amanda Silvers says voters who see the arts as central to Peninsula culture should ask candidates where they stand on what the society calls continuing inequities in Surrey’s funding of SAS.

A July letter from the board to council and a petition circulating in the community say the funding gap threatens SAS’s survival beyond the end of next year, when a grant that has kept it afloat is due to expire. The petition says SAS faces bankruptcy at the end of 2027 after more than 53 years serving the community, attributing the risk to South Surrey receiving almost no arts tax-dollar investment compared with the rest of Surrey.

The City of Surrey disputes that characterization. In a statement, it said staff have been in regular contact with Semiahmoo Arts about a new operating agreement and funding requests. The organization currently receives in-kind city services valued at about $175,000 to $185,000, as well as a $25,000 cash grant, the maximum available through the cultural grants program, the statement said.

Originally called the Community Arts Council of White Rock and District, the organization was founded in 1974. Its partnership with Surrey dates to 2009. SAS has operated about 5,000 square feet of arts space at the South Surrey Recreation and Arts Centre since 2014, while supporting artists and providing arts programming and services for about 111,000 South Surrey residents. The society says the city’s financial contribution remains “negligible.” The original operating agreement expired in 2024. Society and city staff have negotiated since the beginning of this year, but SAS says there has been “no meaningful progress.”

The city said staff recommended that the organization apply to its Community Grants program. The city has received Semiahmoo Arts’ application and will assess it as part of the grant evaluation process, with recommendations going to council for consideration through the 2027 budget process, its statement said.

The petition says South Surrey is home to 16 per cent of Surrey’s population but receives less than one per cent of the city’s annual arts and culture operating budget. It says almost all of the $10.7-million budget is spent north of Highway 10. Silvers said South Surrey needs city support for the arts in line with how communities such as Chilliwack, Port Moody and Coquitlam support their arts societies. “The community deserves the investment of tax dollars,” she said.

Silvers noted that the city’s $25,000 operating support grant for 2026 is less than five per cent of the $506,400 in total funding available to 86 groups. Those groups support a broad range of cultural and heritage activities throughout Surrey, in addition to the arts. The grant represents only three per cent of SAS’s annual operating costs. The society says operating agreements with similar organizations in other communities typically cover as much as 40 per cent of their costs, a regional standard generally established since the 1990s.

Current operating support works out to about 23 cents per resident. By comparison, the Port Moody Arts Society receives $8.66 per resident to operate PoMo Arts Centre on a service model almost identical to the one SAS provides for Surrey.

The board’s letter says SAS has significantly expanded its community services over the past decade. What began as an arts council supporting local practising artists and creating opportunities to share their work has grown to include highly rated, accessible arts education programs open to everyone. In 2025, SAS delivered 227 classes, 40 workshops, 89 low-cost or free events and 11 exhibitions. It employed 21 practising local artists and arts educators as instructors.

SAS also partnered with UNITI, Sources, Brella and the Crescent Housing Society, and provided program subsidies for children, seniors, low-income residents and adults living with developmental disabilities.

During a recent tour of the South Surrey Recreation and Arts Centre, Silvers highlighted two valued programs that may go unnoticed but show SAS’s connection to the Peninsula community. One is the “Messy Babies” art program led by Nina Mudry, which gives mothers a chance to introduce babies and toddlers to art in a safe, mess-proof setting. The source describes this as a crucial developmental step with recognized advantages for very young children. Mudry also offers more technique-based sessions for ages three to five and six to 12.

The centre’s popular pottery studio has 14 wheels and offers five five-hour drop-in sessions each week for children aged six and up, adults and seniors of all skill levels. There were more than 860 drop-ins last year. Haley Hebert currently guides the sessions, assisted by facility operations co-ordinator Emmanuelle Culp.

The board says providing this level of service has come at significant cost. It says SAS ran large deficits for several years and drew $81,000 from investment savings during its first two years of operation. It has now had six executive directors, has routinely been forced to lay off needed staff, and struggles to recruit and retain employees because it cannot offer secure jobs with sustained funding. The board says staff routinely burn out under overwhelming workloads and the society has never had enough funding to build and sustain the staff resources it needs to flourish.

Running a community arts space is stretching SAS’s resources to the limit, Silvers said, while the society must still work to fulfil the basic functions of an area arts council. One key support has been a three-year seed grant of $100,000 per year from the Peace Arch Hospital and Community Health Foundation, which recognized the health benefits and community connections fostered by the arts. The grant saved SAS from bankruptcy in 2025, but Silvers said it cannot reasonably be expected to continue after the term expires at the end of 2027.

SAS says the solution to its current dilemma, and a way to avoid dissolution next year, is fair operating funding from the city. It says that would allow it to resource sustainable operations for community programs and services and build additional funding streams, so it could keep delivering arts services at a value exceeding what the city could provide on its own.

Silvers also pointed to a recent auction of paintings from SAS’s plein-air Paint The Town event, which raised about $6,000 for the cause. “The opportunity [to raise other funding] is here, but we need fair and equitable funding as well,” she said.