In fact, we have decentralized the spending on remembrance in quite a number of ways. First of all, we have Canada Remembers offices throughout in the country. In the province of Quebec, we have an office in Montreal that works with our district offices in Quebec City and elsewhere in the province for Veterans Affairs activities.
But to get directly to your point about the community groups, that is exactly what we have through the community engagement partnership fund. You're 100% on the mark that community groups can do a tremendous amount, often with a very modest amount of support from the government. The community engagement partnership fund supports small groups. Sometimes the requested contributions are $300 or $400, sometimes $2,000 or $4,000, for remembrance activities at the community level.
In addition, we have a sister program to that, the cenotaph and monument restoration program. As I mentioned, there are over 6,000 cenotaphs and monuments across the country. Sometimes all a community needs to bring one of these back to its former state and glory is some assistance. Sometimes the challenge just seems too great or daunting for a small community or small community group to take it on, and this program provides up to 50% of the cost of restoring a cenotaph or monument, up to a maximum of $25,000 in program contribution. Between these two programs, we have approximately $2.2 million available in funding. It's not available for the department to use for its own activities; it is exclusively for community groups and not-for-profit organizations across the country.
The response from communities has been tremendous, both for the cenotaph and remembrance initiatives in communities across the country. Both are extremely important parts of the program. The community engagement partnership fund has been around since 2001, and the cenotaph program was started in 2005.