The Town of Ackerman was awarded a grant from the Mississippi Hills Heritage Area Alliance to assist in the completion of a recently announced park project.
The Mississippi Hills Heritage Area Alliance announced its FY18 community grant winners at the Mississippi Hills Exhibit Center in Tupelo. In total, 31 grants impacting 13 counties within the 30-county Mississippi Hills National Heritage Area were made public during Tuesday's awards ceremony. The total amount awarded by the Alliance was $259,305.
The Town of Ackerman received one of those grants for $5,000 for the purchase of educational plaques to be placed at Ackerman's Governors Park highlighting the life of the two governors that grew up in Ackerman (see page 7A for the article “State of the Town Address’ by Mayor Tim Cutts for details regarding the park)
Mary Cates Williams, executive director of the MHHAA, said, "We are very excited to see the growth in our grant program as we have nearly doubled the grant amount given out this year. We look forward to working with each of these organizations.
It was noted that there were 35 submissions and those which did not receive approval were mostly due to a lack of clarity concerning a clear connection of the project to the Hills management plan themes or uncertainly as to how a 50 percent match would be provided. Both the connection to the management plan and the 50 percent match are Federal requirements.
Williams added that even if a grant request does not gain approval on first submission due to failure of a Federal requirement, it can be re-submitted during a later grant round once corrected.
