Groups receive funds from PCCF

In mid-August, the Phillips Community Foundation (PCCF) announced their 2015 grant program had $10,000 to donate to county organizations and just two months later the foundation received requests for funds shooting over $50,000. Last Wednesday in the Great Northern Lodge Room, eight Phillips County groups were awarded funds to help assist with their community-based projects.

"We were overwhelmed with the response to their recent grant cycle and are very pleased to announce the following funding to worthy projects that will benefit Malta and the communities of Phillips County," said Anne Boothe of PCCF.

Malta Trails, Inc., was awarded $1,000 to assist in the purchase of a commercial mower and brush whackers to help maintain the vast trail system which snake their way through parts of Malta.

Malta Opportunities, Inc., was awarded $2,500 by PCCF in hopes to expand their recycling efforts of donated aluminum cans and will use the monies to help pay for a mobile trailer to assist in their recycling efforts.

Hi-Line Retirement Center was awarded $1,000 and hope to use the grant money to build an outside flower garden – known to residents as the "oasis in the dessert – which includes an a rest area and other money will be put into the center's activity department to assist in programs for the residents.

Art Spot, located in Malta, was awarded $500 that will go towards helping to pay for educational art instructions and program supplies.

Malta Walleye Unlimited was also awarded $500 as the groups looks to extend a boat ramps and insert weather awareness stations at Nelson Reservoir and are also looking to purchase a web camera and launch a new website.

Great Plains Dinosaur Museum was awarded $2,500 in finical assistance to restore the fourth dinosaur sculpture – this one a tyrannosaurus – as the other three already sit in the museum's parking lot after being restored in 2014. The four dinosaurs were originally purchased from a defunct putt-putt golf course in Plains with monies secured from a Tourism Infrastructure Investment Program grant in 2013.

The Malta Senior Center was awarded $1,000 which will be used to help pay for the replacement of sections of flooring at the center which need some TLC.

The final award, $1,000, was given out on Wednesday morning was to the City of Malta. The City has been in talks over the past couple of months to repair a covered picnic area at Review Park which is nearly 20 years old and in disrepair. The City Council approved the tearing down of the structure at a recent and replacing it, in the same location, with a 12x12 shelter sitting atop a cement slab at ground level.