Basic Saginaw ARPA discussions have involved millions of dollars for supporting general city operations, for restoring some past cutbacks such as community centers and recreation, and for renewing never-ending efforts to save our neighborhoods. City Council members are scheduled to continue wrapping up plans at their next meeting on March 6 at 6:30 p.m.
Then you have Diane Donald, who has volunteered to organize the Young Champions Association ever since the 1990s, and Indigo Dudley, the former Miss Saginaw County and current Miss Water Wonderland 2023.
Without knowing what the other was planning, both submitted proposals for exactly $3,000 apiece from the City of Saginaw’s $52 million one-time allotment from the federal American Rescue Plan Act, intended to assist local communities in recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Neither has heard back from City Hall or from the Guidehouse consultants, although Mayor Brenda Moore had pledged that at some point, a goal is to contact non-funded applicants and keep them involved for the civic good, possibly in some cases with a mini-grant type of support.
So far, the squeaky wheels, a.k.a. the larger dollar proposals, have been getting the grease, a.k.a. virtually all the discussion time.
Diane Donald’s proposal, on page 247 of a 462-page book, is for Young Champions to conduct reading tutor sessions, while Indigo Dudley’s aim, buried on page 457, is to organize a youth talent festival.
Diane’s daughter, Chantra, was among the first Young Champions and she now helps her mother out. The teenage members perform an array of community service activities, including 17 trained as reading tutors.
“We work cooperatively with partners, including the READ Association, and also with Hidden Harvest (to provide snacks for the students),” Chantra says. “There are so many resources available in Saginaw that it doesn’t take a lot of money to do things.”
Indigo studied music and theater at SVSU. She proposes a “Great Lakes Bay Talent Show” with a goal “to highlight local talent, to engage youth in extracurricular activities, to promote positivity throughout the city, to empower the Saginaw community through the arts, and to create a fun, family-friendly event in Saginaw while raising money for local organizations.”
Another ARPA example of pinching pennies comes from the Ascension St. Mary’s Center of Hope, formerly the Greenhouse Gathering Place in a renovated house at 723 Emerson. “Washing for Wellness” provides a free laundromat type of service that is linked to neighbors taking part in physical fitness and health education. The mini-budget is so precise that exactly $4,359.20 is requested, with an equal match from the St. Mary’s Foundation for a total of $8,718.40.
At this point, no plans have emerged for outreach to the authors of these and other smaller proposals.
The focus is on larger six-and seven-figure dollar allocations. Some grantees have protested that accounting rules from the Guidehouse consultants are too strict in terms of “reimbursement,” or having cash on hand to cover potential spending errors that violate guidelines.
Meanwhile, applicants who asked for the smallest sums of grant cash are receiving nothing — no funds and no responses.
