Several Lansing neighborhood organizations and community groups recently benefited from 58 individual grants totaling $20,000.
The City of Lansing distributed the grants to help the groups make small changes—aesthetic and structural—to their communities.
“It’s not a huge amount of money, but it’s seed money,” says Joan Nelson with the Allen Neighborhood Center. “Sometimes, literally, seed money is used to purchase flowers or things to beautify neighborhoods. There’s a lot of small ways to do that.”
Every neighborhood has its own method of “improving” the community. The Allen Neighborhood Center has used the grants to take neighborhood seniors on field trips. Other groups host block parties, put the money into a neighborhood watch fund or add toppers to the neighborhood street sign.
“Folks have gotten small grants for neighborhood projects, but those projects bring neighbors together,” she says. “They are usually small amounts, but they have a huge impact.
The individual grants range from $100 to several hundred dollars.
“It’s one of the few funding sources that leaders and small neighborhood groups can go to for small-scale projects that make a big difference,” she says.
Source: Randy Hannan, City of Lansing
Ivy Hughes, development news editor, can be reached here.
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