The Heritage Inn International Balloon Festival was one of four groups to get money from the High River Community Vitality Advisory Committee at Monday's council meeting.

Organizer Jamie Kinghorn says it's very much appreciated.

"It's a significant part of our fundraising, you know we go to local business and we're looking for support from those folks but it's been a tough year for a lot of those businesses and we're finding that donations are down a bit so this is going to be a big boost," Kinghorn says.

He says the money from the vitality fund will provide relief in more ways than one.

Some of it will be used for extra porta potties at the Balloon Glow this year.

Kinghorn says they have a budget of about $65,000 which pays for hotels, insurance, fuel, travel costs for the pilots to get to High River and he adds he's working on getting some unique new pilots to come out this year.