City of Columbus issued the following announcement on Sept. 21.
Mayor Andrew J. Ginther was joined by Columbus City Councilmember Priscilla Tyson and Franklin County Board of Commissioners President John O’Grady to announce $20 million in funding to human services organizations that provide programs that address essential needs of Columbus and Franklin County residents. The funding will be provided from the CARES Act dollars through the Columbus and Franklin County Resilience Initiative.
“We knew when COVID-19 first came to our region that we would have to address the crisis on three fronts: a health crisis, an economic crisis and a human services crisis,” said Mayor Andrew J. Ginther. “Today we are today announcing the recipients of the human services grants – 110 entities in total. These grants were given to organizations across many sectors including – youth, seniors, families and veterans. And we were able to leverage city CARES dollars with county CARES dollars – assuring that we could have a greater impact across the community.”
The City and Franklin County are investing in a diverse group of human services agencies serving a wide variety of residents living Columbus and Franklin County. The money will be used to support services such as the purchase of technology to enable remote learning, telehealth and mentoring to the provision of basic needs including food, clothing, PPE, diapers and other basic necessities.
“I believe that we have to seek every opportunity to help our residents through this pandemic,” said Councilmember Tyson, ahead of the vote for the funding at City Council tonight. “These funds will serve as a resource to assist families with maintaining their necessities – by helping our non-profit partners strategically deliver services to those in need.”
“The need is so great right now. Requests for funding that came in totaled more than four times what was available. So the county and city went through a lengthy screening process to ensure the money would go to agencies in good standing, with a proven track record, which target some of our most needed services right now such as housing, combatting violence and addiction,” said John O’Grady, President of the Franklin County Commissioners. “The work that these agencies do has never been more critical than the demands they face right now.”
The selection of agencies followed an extensive review of over 247 agency proposals by both an internal technical review team and an external review committee chaired by Elon Simms of the Crane Family Foundation. The external Resilience Initiative Review Committee focused on making sure that there was an equitable distribution of the funding.
Original source can be found here.
Source: City of Columbus
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