Interest High In New Community Grants Program
The Tuolumne County Supervisors last month voted to spend $500,000 in federal American Rescue Act dollars on a community grants program for non-profits.
The one-time federal funding pot is designed to help local governments offset some of the impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic. Tuolumne County received over $10-million to spend on efforts of their choosing over the next few years.
The county is doing the grants program in partnership with the Sonora Area Foundation, which is tasked with reviewing the various applications.
At today’s supervisors’ meeting, County Administrative Analyst Jason Terry stated, “Grant applications closed yesterday and we ended with 68 total applications. We would need $2.1 million to fund them all, so the review team has their work cut out for them.”
Grants will range in size from $20,000 to $50,000.
The supervisors earlier decided to allow the foundation to select the recipients, as opposed to the board, to prevent the final selections from being politicized. The groups who are selected for grants will be announced at a later meeting.
The $500,000 community grants program was in addition to the $500,000 Rad Card program which was also funded by federal rescue dollars.
