Grundy Reporter

Grant funding in the amount of $35,000 was awarded by the Grundy Chamber of Commerce and the Community Foundation to small local businesses that may have been on the outside looking in on other grant opportunities.

The funding was dispersed in $1,000 amounts to the businesses selected out of 54 applicants the Chamber press release reported. Applications were made available on the sponsor’s websites through June 24. As part of the application, businesses were asked to identify how they intended using grant funds to help recover from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Applications were given an ID number to ensure there would be no bias. The initial effort has been declared a success with hopes of creating more funds to create another round of grants.

“To date we have only $35,000 in the disaster fund specifically for small business grants. If donors would like to contribute to the fund for this project, we’ll be able to approve more grants, going down the line based on scores,” Julianne Buck, executive director of the Community Foundation, said. "The foundation can also reach out to donor advised funds and look to our regular grants budget to see if we can find more money for this project."