PITTSFIELD, Mass. – After months of getting community feedback on how to spend millions of dollars in American Rescue Plan Act funding, the city of Pittsfield announced the first round of grants on Thursday.
A total of $5.9 million is being given to 18 different nonprofits and cultural groups.
One of the biggest grants went to the Berkshire Black Economic Council, which will use the money to develop programs to support local Black business owners.
“We’ve been working for almost three years as a volunteer-based organization,” said A.J. Enchill, the council’s president and executive director. “And now that we have this capital, we can really begin to look into our future.”
For groups hit especially hard by the pandemic, the funds will help them get their operations back to normal.