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Four Kent County projects receive millions in ARPA grants to strengthen diverse communities

The Kent County Board of Commissioners has 30 projects in total planned that will eventually receive ARPA money.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Eight million dollars are on the way to Kent County Tuesday, all to achieve the goal of empowering diverse communities.

It's all from the American Rescue Plan Act, a bill that President Joe Biden signed in 2021 to help the country recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. The bill included $1.9 trillion in stimulus money.

"We ultimately landed on 30 projects that we feel are going to be very significant and meaningful," says Stan Stek, chair for the Kent County Board of Commissioners.

The first four of those projects are splitting the $8 million. Stek says the projects were narrowed down by impact.

"These were targeted areas that we said we wanted to focus on," says Stek. "And these projects impressed us as being able to do something significant in those areas."

It'll touch on diverse areas of the county.

"We're a pretty diverse county," says Stek. "We have lots of rural areas, we have urban core areas, we have suburban areas. Not every project is going to be targeted across the county."

Four million dollars will go to Amplify GR's new Boston Square Community hub, and $2 million is headed to the Hispanic Center of West Michigan to help grow Latinx businesses.

One million dollars each will also go the Grand Rapids Center for Community Transformation and the Grand Rapids African American Health Institute.

Stek is excited for the opportunity.

"The key vision for Kent County is with many counties is identifying those services that our residents need," says Stek. "And in many cases we're continuing to work over a long term to try to get that done incrementally. This allows us to jumpstart a number of those initiatives."

Stek says work on the projects is underway and you should see results of that money almost immediately.

    

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