Jefferson County is now accepting grant application from small businesses, nonprofits and residential care facilities within the county that are interested in receiving pandemic relief funds through the American Rescue Plan Act.
According to a news release from the county earlier this month, applications to receive funds made available to the county through the act, commonly known as ARPA, are available on the county’s website, http://www.jeffersoncounty-mt.gov. The release stated that materials outlining federal guidance on use of the funds is also available on the site.
The county defined an eligible small business as a company that employs 10 or fewer people and that has a primary address in the county. The county will award up to 25 grants of $2,500 each to businesses experiencing negative effects from the coronavirus pandemic including “reduced opportunities for work and income generation, employee layoffs, reduced working hours, [and] increased costs associated with meeting business requirements imposed by COVID-19,” according to the release.
Nonprofits located in the county that have filed their required annual reports with the state in the past 24 months are eligible to apply for ARPA grants if they experienced pandemic impacts including “reduced opportunities for service to constituencies and income generation; increased burden on the organization to provide services to constituents; and the need to provide remediation and COVID abatement supports to constituents in a host of recovery areas such as health care, housing or food insufficiency due to job losses or school closing, or impact of illness on family resources,” the release stated.
Residential care facilities, which the county defined as “assisted and congregate living homes, nursing homes and assisted living centers … that provide primary residential support to vulnerable populations [and] are licensed by the state,” are eligible to apply for county ARPA grants to offset pandemic impacts including “staffing recruitment and support, increased costs of safety tools or routines and acquisition of personal protective equipment, increased training, overtime, income reduction due to delayed admissions, cost of building modifications, and more.”
Jefferson County ARPA Grant Administrator Terri Lewis stated in an email on Monday that the county has two years to spend the funds and that there is not yet a deadline for submitting grants. For more information or for help completing an application, contact Lewis at terri.lewis@jldcmt.com or (931) 267-3532.
