LUZERNE COUNTY, Pa. — Luzerne County Council voted Tuesday night to send federal funding to 113 recipients that applied for financial assistance through the American Rescue Plan. These recipients included municipalities, municipal authorities, small businesses, and nonprofits, like Candy's Place, a cancer wellness center in Forty Fort.
"When Luzerne County was going through the final approvals for the American Rescue funds, we applied for $115,900, which goes to our core programs of providing support services to cancer patients and their families," said director Tom Ruskey.
Ruskey says this was the perfect time to get this funding the council says should be distributed in the next month or so.
"This couldn't come at a better time. We're seeing here again; we're dealing with people who have compromised systems because of their illness. So, we're seeing that COVID fear start to go away. So much so that we've seen, in the past four months alone, over 200 percent increase in demand for our services. So, these funds coming in at this time are absolutely perfect for us being able to meet that demand," he explained.
A prerequisite for the funding was proving hardship caused by the pandemic. For nonprofits like Candy's Place and the Irem Temple Restoration Project, the biggest impact was on fundraising.
"We were in the middle of the roof. We did stabilize the roof, the roof is fine, but we do need to finish the roof, and the fundraising had been stalled," said Dale Parmenteri, a board member of the Irem Temple Restoration Project.
The restoration project for the temple on North Franklin Street in Wilkes-Barre was awarded $500,000.
"What this funding is doing for us is allow us to finish our roof and move forward with the entire project, which is what we've been working on, for now, four years since 2018," said Parmenteri.
Plans include restoring the temple into an event venue.
"That'll allow us to do trade shows, allow us to do weddings, potentially winter farmers market, expanded space for the Fine Arts Fiesta if they'd like, but we want it to be a regional community use," added Parmenteri.
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