$20Mavailable in aid for health businesses, daycares, farmers
Federal funds offered as community tries to recover amid pandemic.
Montgomery County officials provided new details Wednesday about three coronavirus aid programs totaling $20 million to assist farmers, health care providers, preschools and those offering daycare programs that serve both children and adults.
“Our entire community has felt the effects of the pandemic, the shutdowns and our uncertainty about the future,” said Montgomery County Commissioner Debbie Lieberman.
The grants, which don’t have to be repaid, come from Montgomery County’s more than $92 million in federal CARES Act funds. From that, $5 million is going to aid daycares and preschools, $5million to assist farmers and other agricultural businesses and $10 million to health care providers hurt by the coronavirus pandemic, according to the county.
Individual day cares and preschoolsmay be eligible for grants up to $30,000, Lieberman said.
“Our daycares and our preschools have been hit extremely hard. And we hope that these new grants can help them fill some of the gaps from their lost revenue,” she said. “These organizations provide an incredible, necessary service to our communities … to care for our families, and be there as a place for our children youngest children to thrive and actually a lot of them to be fed.”
Lieberman said the grants are not limited to daycares for
children, but also for those providing services to adults.
“When you’re caring for your parents or spouse that needs to have care, all of these services are so critical to our community,” she said.
Grants of up to $100,000 are available to Montgomery County farmers, who didn’t stop planting or raising livestock while many other businesses faced pandemic shutdowns, said Montgomery County Commissioner Carolyn Rice.
“Our agriculture businesses are key to the community because they supply the basic human need for food. We’re lucky to have a very strong farm community across our county,” she said. “It would be difficult to get out of a public health crisis with a shortage of healthy food.”
County staff will be at the Montgomery County Fairgrounds & Event Center from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. daily through Friday to explain the programand allowfarmers to apply, according to the county.
Grants of up to $100,000 will be made available to eligible hospitals — both public and private — medical centers, health clinics
and other health service providers, according to the county.
The health care grants can be used for mortgage and rent, utilities, costs related to immunizations, coronavirus testing and contact tracing, PPE supplies, technology, and other public health expenses resulting
from the pandemic.
Similar to the other programs, the funds can be used for expenses either already incurred or anticipated between March 1 and Dec. 31.
“Our hospitals, medical centers, health clinics and other providers have spent the last several months
fighting COVID-19 while trying their best to keep their own health careworkers safe from the virus,” Rice said. “This has been a tireless job and we hope that these grants can help our health care institutions continue to battle with this terrible virus.”