The City of Beaufort announced a pair of grant awards totaling $1,011,280 at its City Council meeting on July 10.

A $1,000,000 community development block grant (CDBG) is earmarked specifically to be used in the Mossy Oaks Drainage improvement project. The City Council passed a resolution accepting the CDBG grant and assigning it to the Mossy Oaks Drainage Project. Of the 1,250 households directly affected by the completion of the project, more than 60 percent qualify as low- to moderate-income households and will benefit from the expenditure of these department of commerce grant funds. This grant is the largest possible CDBG grant awarded in the state.

The other award is an $11,280 grant from the Fire House Subs Public Safety Foundation. This grant will be used for the direct purchase of 16 HeartSine Automated External Defibrillators, which the City of Beaufort Police Department will use in the event an officer with this equipment is in the position to help someone experiencing cardiac arrest.

“These awards are a direct reflection of our staff’s willingness to work hard on the applications and even harder on the compliance side of these grants once they are awarded,” City Manager Bill Prokop said. “Our departments, in this case police and public works, work hand in hand with our finance department to ensure our grants are managed properly so that we can continue to be seeking out new opportunities based on past successes.”