STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, CO, December 3, 2020 – During a special meeting today, the Routt County Board of Commissioners approved $786,000 in community relief funds for the business and non-profit community. $661,000 will be allocated to the business community and $125,000 to the non-profit community. Routt County was successful in applying for additional CARES Act funding and reallocating existing CARES Act funding to help organizations in need and facilitate a swift recovery of the economy. The Steamboat Springs Chamber and the Yampa Valley Community Foundation will collect applications for this funding. Details on criteria are available on their websites.
After approving the funding allocation, Tim Corrigan, Chair, Routt County Commissioners said, “We understand the challenges that our business and non-profit community have faced during this long-term pandemic. We worked with the state to secure funding to ensure that organizations can survive this pandemic and employers and employees get the financial assistance they need to survive these unprecedented times. We want to thank the Yampa Valley Community Foundation and the Steamboat Chamber for assisting us in this process and we hope that this infusion of funds will lead to increased stability in our local economy.”
During the meeting, some specific criteria were addressed that will be in both the business and non-profit applications:
· Businesses and non-profits need to have been operating before March 2020
· Businesses and non-profits need to have been compliant with public health orders and commit to complying in the future
· Funding cannot be used for expenses already paid for by federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) or other funding sources
Both the Steamboat Springs Chamber and the Yampa Valley Community Foundation have review committees set up to analyze the applications and give recommendations to the County Commissioners on who should receive the grants. The business relief grants are up to $15,000 and the non-profit grants are up to $5000. Each entity has a different deadline for applications.
· The business relief grant deadline for business applications is December 10th at 12:00 pm.
· The Yampa Valley Community Foundation’s deadline for non-profit applications is December 14th at 5:00pm.
After receiving recommendations from each group, the County Commissioners will vote to approve the funding requests. Routt County will distribute the funding in its two-week accounts payable cycles after they have been approved, with all funds allocated no later than January 13th, 2021.
“Financial assistance is a key component to small business survival and we are pleased to see Routt County making funds available through these relief grants,” says Kara Stoller, Steamboat Springs Chamber CEO. “While this is a fast application process and short timeline, we know how important it is to get these dollars to businesses as quickly as possible.”
Tim Wohlgenant, Executive Director of the Yampa Valley Community Foundation added his thanks as well to the Commissioners, “We are so grateful the County was successful in obtaining additional CARES Act funding and pleased to be able to assist in getting these funds out to our nonprofit community as quickly and effectively as possible. Many nonprofit organizations suffered a double blow from the pandemic this year – first in major changes in demands for services, and second with an inability to hold their usual fundraisers due to gathering restrictions. Many nonprofits have reported drops in revenue from 25% to over 60% so far this year. Even those organizations that have developed multiple sources of revenue have suffered. Along with greatly increased pressure on private philanthropy, public funding has also declined or disappeared along with state and local budgets. This CARES Act funding will help ease the economic fallout from those effects and comes at a critical time, when these organizations are striving to meet their year-end budgets.”
Applications for the grants can be found here:
Steamboat Springs Chamber: www.steamboatchamber.com/support-grants
Yampa Valley Community Foundation: https://yvcf.org/
Contacts:
Routt County, Robin Schepper,
Steamboat Chamber, Angelica Salinas,
Yampa Valley Community Foundation, Helen Beall