LEWISTON – A worldwide TV network plans to spend more than $20,000 at the Franco-American Heritage Center this year, money the Little Canada center plans to use to polish some of its events and ease its bottom line.

In return, the center aims to promote the network, the all-French TV5Monde.

“It’s a great deal for us,” said Rita Dube, the center’s executive director, who plans to offer flyers at each network-sponsored event.

“This enables us to hire additional talent,” she said. “And we can pay some bills.”

Most of the money the center raises each year – sometimes totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants and donations – goes to aid the restoration of the granite facade of the former Catholic church.

Among the TV5 sponsorships will be $800 per month to help cover the costs of the regular Le Racontre meetings, which draw more than 300 people for monthly all-in-French lunch meetings.

Another $1,000 will help defray food costs for a March 21 reception and concert with “Le Grand Derangement.” The Nova Scotia-based band’s appearance is being paid for by the Canadian government, part of the center’s celebration of the International Day of the Francophone.

The network plans to play a larger role in this summer’s Festival FrancoFun, promising at least $10,000 to the center for the weekend event. It’s enough money to move the entire festival to the Colisee, rather than hold it for only one day as was done last year.

TV5Monde hopes to make itself more popular in Maine with several efforts, said Patrice Courtaban, chief operating officer of the network’s U.S. offices in Hollywood.

“This is a pretty extensive project for us,” Courtaban said in a phone interview. “We’re making a push in Maine.”

Besides the sponsorships at the center, the network is reaching out to French language teachers here, scheduling seminars in Lewiston, Augusta and Bangor, Courtaban said. For two decades, TV5Monde’s “Teach and Learn” program has been working with teachers in several countries.

Yet, the network’s first reach into Maine was to the Lewiston center.

“That’s a centerpiece of the French community” he said. That’s what he learned after talking with officials at France’s consulate in Boston.

TV5Monde is available to most of the region’s Time Warner subscribers on Channel 71.

TV5Monde reaches more than 165 million households and 25 million viewers in more than 203 countries. It is available locally on Time Warner Cable’s Channel 71.