The Brown County Community Foundation will be receiving more than $80,000 from the United Ways of Bartholomew and Monroe counties to help Brown County recover from COVID-19.

Indiana United Ways recently launched the United Way COVID-19 Economic Relief Initiative, created with support from a $30 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. The money is being distributed through the statewide network of local United Ways to help meet needs in Hoosier communities.

Since Brown County doesn’t have a United Way, the Brown County Community Foundation is serving this area.

From the COVID-19 ERI grant, Brown County anticipates receiving $44,142.66 from Monroe County and $38,500 from Bartholomew County United Ways, for the benefit of BCCF’s Rapid Response Fund. The amounts of the grants are based on the populations of the counties served.

With this money, the BCCF plans to help this community retain its capacity to meet human needs. This can be achieved through sustaining the nonprofits engaged in work that supports individuals and families in this crisis, fueling the networks that keep families afloat with services like childcare and access to food, and other local priorities as they arise.

“The community response in Brown County has been extraordinary thus far, but we anticipate needs will increase as the pandemic progresses and aftereffects to our economy are felt,” said BCCF CEO Maddison Miller. “We have reached out to local government, nonprofits and other partners to ensure our community is positioned for a quick response and recovery from this unprecedented event.”

“We will work to help as many people and organizations as possible with these valuable resources and encourage all nonprofits delivering services during the pandemic to talk with us about how we can support them,” Miller added.

Past awards from the Rapid Response Fund have enabled groups to purchase personal protective equipment, food and to inform residents about the resources available to them.

This money cannot be used to directly provide cash assistance to individuals or to businesses, but creative community partnerships are being formed to address needs like rent/mortgage assistance, utility assistance, medical needs and other direct assistance to individuals and families, the BCCF reported.

BCCF encourages nonprofits negatively impacted by COVID-19 to apply for support at browncountygives.org/rapidgrantapplication or call Miller at 812-988-4882.