By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
Grant funds available through the northwest Missouri Coalition for Roadway Safety can be applied for now.
The grants are special designation funds from the Missouri Department of Transportation that are distributed to coalitions throughout the state.
Northwest Coalition Chairperson Chance Gallagher says the coalition is in charge of designating who receives the funds.
"We like to give them out to service groups, EMS, police, fire, schools, anything that has to do with traffic safety specifically, or bicycle safety, or trying to stop kids from not wearing their seatbelts, or anything like that," Gallagher tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post
Gallagher says individuals cannot apply for these grants unless they are affiliated with some sort of group.
Grant requests may not exceed $5,000. Gallagher says the average grant application is usually for around $1,000-$3,000.
"These are mainly rural departments that need a little bit of help, or service groups, or just different agencies," Gallagher explains.
Gallagher gives an example of how the funds have been used in Putnam County
"They go to the Putnam County Fair and they do driving simulators, and they pass out T-Shirts, and they play games," Gallagher says. "They're one of our big people that apply every year and I think they never exceed $3,000 but they make a huge impact."
Gallagher says applications for the funds must focus on one of the emphasis areas of the Show Me Zero highway safety plan
"There's four emphasis areas occupant protection, which is wear your seatbelt things like that, there's distracted driving so don't text and drive just different campaigns with that, there's speed and aggressive driving, making sure people aren't speeding they are following traffic laws things like that area, and then the fourth one is impaired driving," Gallagher says. "So, it has to correlate to those somehow."
Grant applications will be accepted through September 9th.