Alabama Covid-19 grant recipients say cash has covered holes caused by pandemic
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MOBILE, Alabama (WALA) Faced with a looming deadline to spend the money it got under a massive federal COVID-19 relief package, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey put together a pair of grants to help small businesses and other organizations.
The gifts were small $20,000 or less. That’s tiny compared to the budget even of most small businesses. But Mobile-area recipients say the money helped during a terrible year.
“We’re very grateful to Governor Ivey and the state of Alabama,” said Gina O’Brien Finnegan, director of development for the Mobile Symphony Orchestra. “It’s very helpful because this was – just between March and December, we’ve incurred more than $50,000 in extra expenses. So, that really helps us to pay for this in a time when other revenues are down. So for us, it’s a huge help.”
Tamika Palmer, the mother of Breonna Taylor, right, listens to a news conference, Friday, Sept. 25, 2020, in Louisville, Ky. Family attorney Ben Crump is calling for the Kentucky attorney general to release the transcripts from the grand jury that decided not to charge any of the officers involved in the Black woman s death. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)
By Erica Wright
The Birmingham Times
What’s left to say about 2020 except that it’s over. But what a year with the well-chronicled coronavirus pandemic that killed more than 300,000; racial unrest that created division in across many communities and a presidential election that was over until it wasn’t. And there was plenty of more to a year that goes down as one of the most memorable in recent history. Here’s some of what happened.