North Judson Community Center Grant Denied

NJCommunityCenterFunding for a planned North Judson-Wayne Township community center has been denied by the Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs. Organizers were hoping to get a $500,000 Public Facilities Program grant to help cover the projected $840,000 cost.

North Judson Clerk-Treasurer Alicia Collins says the next step will be to meet with officials from the Kankakee-Iroquois Regional Planning Commission next week and go over the scoring from the application. They want to see if the project scored high enough to make it worth trying again for the same grant.

Community centers are listed as one of the eligible projects in the Public Facilities Program. However, Collins says project organizers didn’t realize they would be competing with libraries and educational facilities.

Last week, OCRA announced the Town of Walkerton had been awarded $400,000 through the program, for the construction of a new library. This cycle’s other grant recipient was Orange County. It got $500,000 for upgrades to its First Chance Center, which provides employment help and other services for people with disabilities.

As for North Judson’s community center, Collins says organizers will meet with the Wayne Township Board before any further decisions are made. More than $10,000 has been collected in monetary donations for the project.