The Prince William Area Disaster Fund’s application period opened Wednesday, May 20. The fund was created as the combined disaster relief and recovery effort for the Greater Prince William area (Prince William County, City of Manassas, City of Manassas Park), with assistance from the County’s Office of Emergency Management.
Administered by The Human Services Alliance of Greater Prince William, the fund will allow businesses, private citizens, faith-based groups and others to provide operational and programmatic support to organizations responding to the effects of COVID-19 on the community’s most vulnerable residents.
Community groups serving the Greater Prince William area are encouraged to submit project proposals to be eligible for grant awards of up to $5,000. Proposals must support the fund’s strategic objectives, including:
- meeting critical unmet needs;
- deploying effective groups and agencies with proven on-the-ground experience in addressing emergency management and public health;
- enhancing service capacity for nonprofit and faith-based partners that have experienced a surge of assistance requests;
- addressing the unique needs of people from underserved communities;
- mitigating the impact of reduced wages and lost work;
- expanding access to childcare;
- and assisting with soft services.
To date, $15,000 from the fund has been used to buy food to support the 43 area food distribution sites partnered with the Community Feeding Task Force.
Alliance Executive Director Chelsi Conaway said, “The needs of the human services community are immense. Throughout the grant selection process, we’ll seek to find a balance between the number of groups we can help and investments that will meaningfully support the work that they do. Given the tremendous needs our service providers face, we will continue to work tirelessly with partners to increase access to local resources in the weeks and months ahead.”
A committee of local community service providers will review proposals.
For more information on the grant and to request funding, visit www.alliancegpw.org/disasterfund.