By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
Bowling Green City Council is preparing to share the city’s American Rescue Plan Act money with local non-profit agencies that serve city residents.
A total of $500,000 in the COVID relief funds will be divided up among non-profit organizations impacted by the COVID pandemic. As of the deadline last month, 17 applications were received – with requests for $670,000.
It is now up to Martha Woelke, community development administrator for the city of Bowling Green, to calculate the financial impacts of COVID on each of the non-profit agencies between March 2020 through December 2021. That information will be used to help City Council prioritize the funding requests.
“It’s a challenge,” Woelke said of evaluating the requests.
Some of the non-profits are seeking funds for ongoing operations and some for upgrading equipment. Many requests came from organizations trying to keep people fed.
“It’s a really wide variety,” Woelke said of the applications.
Bowling Green was awarded $7.2 million in 2021 in American Rescue Plan Act funds designed to help the community recover from the economic impacts of the COVID pandemic.
City Council received more than 450 funding suggestions from Bowling Green citizens, non-profit agencies, businesses and city government. The requests for funding far outnumbered the dollars available for the city and county.
Non-profit organizations, whose clientele are Bowling Green residents most negatively impacted by COVID – such as those with lower incomes, those with food insecurity or unemployed – were encouraged to apply for grant funding of up to $50,000.
The following organizations applied:
- BG Christian Food Pantry
- National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI)
- La Conexion
- Full Tilt Fastpitch Softball
- Bowling Green Recycling Inc.
- Work Leads to Independence (WLI)
- Brown Bag Food Project
- First United Methodist Child Learning Center
- BG Fire Division Community Benefit Fund
- BG Girls Fast Pitch Softball League/Velocity
- STARS Community Learning Center
- First Christian Church of Bowling Green
- St. Mark’s Lutheran Church
- United Way
- Children’s Hunger Alliance
- Wood Lane Residential Services
- Bowling Green Arts Council
Woelke said she expects City Council to make a decision soon on the non-profit funding requests.
“I believe they don’t want to let it linger,” she said.
Following are the projects already receiving ARPA funds that were awarded to Bowling Green. Early on, the city dedicated funds to these infrastructure projects:
- $3 million for residential street paving.
- $350,000 for MARCS radios to improve public safety communications.
- $250,000 for paving at City Park, including road widening, a walking path, and security improvements.
- $100,000 for an inclusive playground at Carter Park.
- $300,000 for housing grants over three years.
Then the city asked for proposals, and gave away another $2 million in the fall of 2022.
The projects were scored on a rubric which ranked them on criteria such as the frequency of the requests, the continuing expenses required, the chances of matching or in-kind funding, the degree the project is already being address by another entity, whether or not the project was directly impacted by COVID, the number of BG residents who could be positively impacted, and the positive impact on the local economy.
Projects getting pieces of the funding pie included:
Downtown improvements
- $75,000 for downtown public restrooms in the former drive-thru bank next to the police station.
- $100,000 for an alley revitalization project requested by the Downtown BG Special Improvement District.
Park improvements
- $180,000 to help build the shared use path from the high school to the community center and to the Cogan’s Crossing housing development north of Bishop Road. The city had already secured a grant for 90% of the project which is already underway.
- $150,000 for the proposed pickleball courts next to the community center. By allocating some funds now, the project may be better equipped to apply for grants and matching funds.
- $150,000 to go toward establishing walkable dog parks closer to city neighborhoods. This funding will help the citizens group pushing for the dog parks to secure matching grants.
- $20,000 to update and improve the disc golf course in Carter Park.
Other funding winners:
- $350,000 to pay for inflationary cost overruns in the city’s residential street paving program due to supply chain issues, labor shortages and inflation.
- $75,000 for an innovation and entrepreneurship accelerator feasibility analysis and business plan requested by BG Economic Development.
- $100,000 annually for the next three years for housing assistance grants offered by the city for owner-occupied homes.
- $25,000 for a feasibility study for a hike-bike trail from Crim Elementary School to Carter Park. The funding was requested by the East Side neighborhood residential group.
