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BELLEFONTE -- Over the past several months, Centre County government has made the most of the CARES Act county relief block grant.
At Tuesday's Board of Commissioners' meeting, COVID-19 grant coordinator Mary Kay Williams presented a "high level overview" of how the funds have been distributed throughout the county. Williams, who joined the staff "five months and one week ago," talked at length about the funds and broke down the process of distribution.
"We covered a lot of ground together," Williams said. "I really feel so grateful that so much of it was successful. The main success of this whole initiative was the great teamwork that we have."
According to Williams, the team met on a weekly basis to assess and evaluate the process.
The breakdown of where the CARES Act funding went looks like this:
-- A total of $862,014 went to the COVID-19 testing site at the Nittany Mall, which was in operation for 11 weeks. The site will return in January of 2021, though a location has not been announced.
"I think the testing site was phenomenal," Williams said.
-- Around $800,000 went to personal protective equipment (PPE). The PPE was distributed to emergency responders, local government, healthcare workers, schools, non-profits and small businesses. All told, the county distributed 5,000 face shields, 150,000 cotton face masks, 50,000 N-95 masks, 224,000 pairs of Nitrile gloves, 200 infrared touchless digital thermometers, 20 first responder UV mobile sanitizers, 200,000 disposable surgical masks, 8,620 isolation gowns and 10,120 pumps of sanitizers.
"When people were flooding the gates, getting (PPE), we put a plan together to get $800,000 out into the community," Williams said.
-- A total of $1,421,419 went to 30 municipalities. Those funds helped pay for vital services such as police, safety/security, PPE and other COVID-19 related expenses.
"The (municipalities) have more money in their bank account because we were able to help them," Williams said.
-- $499,375 went to educational institutions. Included were: Bald Eagle Area, Bellefonte Area, Cen-Clear, CPI, Keystone Central, Penns Valley, Penn State University, Philipsburg-Osceola, State College Area and Tyrone. Williams pointed out that only students in Centre County were helped by the CARES Act funds.
"There are some school districts that have crossovers of other county students, but we made sure that we only reimbursed for Centre County students because other CARES Act funds would come from other counties. That was a help to many of these educational institutions," Williams said.
-- $864,500 went to non-profits. A total of 107 Centre County non-profits were aided by the CARES Act funding. To qualify, Williams said, they had to be either 501c3 or 501c19 eligible. Williams said that the Centre Foundation assisted in distribution of funds.
-- $5,536,130 went for small business grants. More than 500 businesses applied and a total of 437 received funding.
"I've heard from so many businesses that said: 'You were the lifeline. If I hadn't had this funding, I wouldn't be able to pay my rent or my taxes or my payroll'," Williams said.
-- Economic development support went to the CBICC ($45,780) and the Happy Valley Adventure Bureau ($43,400).
"We covered a lot of ground in a very short time frame. I was really proud to be part of the project," Williams concluded.
Her last day with the county will be today.
"It's been a great ride. A wild one, but it's been a great one," Williams said.
Chair of the Board of Commissioners, Michael Pipe, thanked Williams for her time with the county.
"We want to thank you, first and foremost, for all the work you did with the grant," Pipe said. "We're doing a lot of reflection today … it's very healthy to look back to see what we've accomplished together as a team and as a county government … this is the largest grant ever administered by the county and it probably will be for the foreseeable future, maybe ever."
The Centre County Board of Commissioners will meet again at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 5. The meeting will be held virtually on Zoom and televised by C-NET.