How to get money from the government
US Rep. Paul Tonko leads grant workshop
TROY, N.Y. » The Bulmer Telecommunications Center Auditorium at Hudson Valley Community College was filled Wednesday with people who were all interested in learning more about grants.gov and using census data in grants applications.
The workshop was hosted by U. S. Rep. Paul Tonko, D-Amsterdam, as a way to highlight local and federal resources that support Capital Region healthcare and community development.
The workshop at HVCC was held in conjunction with Grants. gov and the U.S. Census Bureau, where they offered information on how to apply for federal grant opportunities using Community Survey data and grants.gov.
“We do this because we want you to be totally aware of the grants that are available and we do it because we want you to expedite the best application that you can in terms of landing the dollars that are required to go forward with your programming,” Tonko explained to peo- ple in attendance. “It’s [also] important to the people you serve.... There are many cuts proposed routinely in Washington, many of those I fight against because I do think they speak to the quality of life of the people here in the 20th Congressional District, but those cuts are all
the more inspiration to go forward and make certain we land every available dollar [for this] district and you’re the agents that provide for all of that, so we thank you.”
“We’re very interested always in bringing federal dollars to the district,” added Marilyn Smith, the Economic Development Liaison in Tonko’s office.
People who attended the workshop were able to hear more about howto navigate through the grants.gov website through a live audio dis- cussion with Judy Ceresa , Senior Program Advisor in the Grants.gov Program Management Office.
“You want to make sure to submit your applications as early as possible, you don’t want to wait until the last minute, you worked hard preparing your application, [so] just make sure you submit it early because if there is an issue and you need to re-submit, you want to make sure that you have [enough] time to do that,” said Ceresa during her audio presentation.
People also were able to learn how to navigate the U. S. Census Bureau website and the benefits of using the website when ap- plying for grants during a presentation with David Kraiker, Data Dissemination & GIS Specialist with the U.S. Census Bureau.
Katie Hammon, Executive Director of the Downtown Troy Business Improvement District, was one of those in attendance Tuesday and she said that she thought the workshop was helpful.
“For the BID we’re always interested in grants for ourselves and helping others submit grants of their own and letting them know what grants are out there,” said Hammon, when asked why she wanted to attend the workshop.