MURRAY River Council (MRC) will include a COVID-19 support grants category to its annual financial assistance program.
Already comprising the community grants, quick response grants, local heritage fund and youth week programs, the COVID support grants will be added to the financial assistance framework to address the rising number of requests for assistance from local community groups.
“A number of our local community groups have reported experiencing financial difficulty because of COVID restrictions — struggling to meet commitments due to lack of income,” Mayor Chris Bilkey said.
“Not-for-profit community groups are vital to our local communities, yet they have received minimal if any financial support from state and federal governments during the pandemic.
“So we have looked at our overall financial assistance program, which in the most part was developed to support our local groups, and have moved some allocations around to provide equitable and meaningful support for community groups adversely affected by COVID-19.”
To fund the COVID support grants, council will transfer allocated funds from its annual allocations and a portion of funds from the quick response grants to ensure minimal impacts on the 2021/22 budget.
Cr Bilkey said the next round of the community grants program, which was due to open in February 2022, would also be suspended pending a review of requests for assistance at that time.
“We will review the situation in February based on how many requests for financial support we have received, and if required we will re-allocate the community grants funds to the COVID assistance program,” Cr Bilkey said
Eligibility will include providing evidence of hardship due to COVID restrictions.
