The public is invited to tonight’s grant award ceremony for the Greene County Community Foundation.

President Tom Wind says 23 organizations and projects will receive a total of $179,500 in grant funds. They received 29 applications totaling $247,000. Wind points out that one of his favorite parts is the deliberation process the board goes through to figure out what groups will receive funds every year.

“As you know, when you get 20 people together in a room they don’t all agree on what is a good project and what is not a good project. We’re under the pressure, we always get more requests for funding than we have money. So we have to make some difficult decisions on who gets the money and who doesn’t. Usually we’ll have three or four grant applications that have more mixed opinions on whether they should get it or not.”

The Greene County Community Foundation receives their funding through the gaming license holder for Wild Rose Casino, Grow Greene County Gaming Corporation.

The ceremony will be at the First Presbyterian Church in Jefferson tonight at 7pm. The event is free and open to the public.