DOLA Awarded $2.3 Million Recovery Aid Grant : The Prowers Journal

Statewide Workforce together with OEDIT to assistance rural economies and businesses
recover from economic impacts of COVID-19

DENVER, MARCH 17, 2021 — The Financial Progress Administration (EDA) announced final 7 days that it has awarded a $2.3 million CARES Act Recovery Aid grant to the Colorado Section of Local Affairs (DOLA) to help rural Colorado communities establish financial restoration and resiliency plans. These efforts will guidance the advancement of regional economies and firms, and advance economic resiliency attempts.

A State Partnership Crew like the Office of Area Affairs (DOLA), the Office environment of Financial Growth and Global Trade (OEDIT), and the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment (CDLE), together with the nonprofit Group Builders, will provide rural communities arranging and specialized help aid to diversify and improve their economies when creating resiliency. Communities with shared economies are invited to variety Regional Local community Groups to speed up development toward thriving and resilient economies. Teams will be selected as a result of a official application course of action centered on their rural status, COVID-19 impacts, linked economies and economic vulnerability aspects. The purpose is to provide 16 Regional Group Teams, representing at the very least 50 rural Colorado communities.

This EDA grant will be matched with $869,723 in matching cash from the Condition Partnership Workforce to localities, and is anticipated to make 100 jobs as perfectly as $50 million in non-public expense. This grant lets rural Colorado communities the possibility to create Colorado Rural COVID-19 Restoration & Resiliency Roadmap.

“This task is constrained to Regional Neighborhood Teams from rural counties and from municipalities with populations underneath 50,000,” mentioned Glenn Plagens, director of Business enterprise Guidance and Rural Prosperity at OEDIT. “COVID-19 was an financial shock in contrast to any other and though the financial state statewide was impacted, it was specially felt in rural communities wherever tourism and company marketplace positions are prevalent. This grant will allow us to further more assist our rural communities.”

“This initiative will present essential restoration and resiliency scheduling aid so that our rural communities – such as essential communities impacted by the transitioning coal financial state – can take a extended-phrase, holistic look at to reimagine their regional economies and progress priority projects,” stated Anne Miller, Director of the Colorado Resiliency Office environment at DOLA.  “By contemplating regionally, these rural communities will have the edge of strategizing around impacts and prospects whilst also constructing partnerships to shared visions and targets. The positive aspects will go further than pandemic response and restoration and will shift Colorado toward a a lot more resilient upcoming.”

The Condition Partnership Workforce will do the job carefully with the Regional Community Teams, supplying every with capability aid (including a paid out expert), facts and entry to means to produce a Restoration and Resiliency Roadmap. The picked Regional Neighborhood Teams will hook up on a regular basis with rural representatives from the a few condition companies and will have intense assistance from a point out-furnished economic restoration venture supervisor. Community Builders will also assist each and every of the community teams all through the undertaking.

Filed Less than: County • COVID-19 • Economic system • Surroundings • Media Release

Tags: Colorado • Covid-19 • DOLA