Winamac officials are optimistic that the town will be able to get a $200,000 grant to rebuild its swimming pool. After months of preparations and lots of last-minute work, the park board turned in its grant application to the Indiana Department of Natural Resources by the June 1 deadline.
During Thursday’s park board meeting, President Courtney Poor said he was amazed that everything came together. “We got the job done,” he said, “and we were actually, believe it or not, a day ahead of time, as far as getting it in the mail a day ahead of time.”
A large share of the work was done by Winamac Deputy Clerk Kim Burke. She estimates she put 80 hours of work into gathering the necessary documents. Pulaski County Community Development Commission Executive Director Nathan Origer also spent several hours putting information into narrative form, as required by the application, drawing on his past experience with the Kankakee-Iroquois Regional Planning Commission.
Additionally, DNR officials recently visited Winamac to offer some guidance. According to Burke, the DNR is expecting 12 or 13 applications for Land and Water Conservation grants this year, and Winamac should have a very good chance. Grant recipients are expected to be announced in August or September.
Park board members thanked Burke and Origer for all their extra work on the application.
