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March 28, 2024 8:11 am
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Cappalappa FRC Comes Up Short In 2017-18 Grant Funding

By VERNON ROBISON

Moapa Valley Progress

An important local non-profit is urgently seeking new sources of financial support after being passed over by a county grant upon which it has long depended.

The Board members and staff of Cappalappa Family Resource Center (FRC) found themselves in a tight spot last week. On Tuesday, January 3, County Commissioners approved a list of Outside Agency Grant (OAG) recipients in Clark County District B for the 2016-17 fiscal year. But this year Cappalappa was not on the list.

Cappalappa FRC has consistently been an OAG recipient every year for over a decade. In the previous fiscal year, the center received 55,000 in OAG funding. That amount makes up more than 30 percent of the Cappalappa’s total budget.
“We were surprised and disappointed that we didn’t get anything this time around,” said Cappalappa FRC Treasurer Ryan Doty last week. “The county has been good to us for many years and we appreciate that. We always kind of expect a reduction, or to get less than what we ask for. But to get zero this year really puts things in a bind.”

Doty emphasized that the center is not in danger of closing its doors at this point. The board has been operating under intense fiscal discipline for many years now and has managed to build a small rainy day reserve for just such instances as this, he said.

Still, the cut in funding will have an effect on the center’s ability to maintain service levels. After tightening the belt as much as possible in the operating budget last week, the board had to make the decision to let two staff members go at the center.
“Unfortunately, that means there will be some longer wait times and ultimately we will be able to serve less people,” Doty said. “We are trying to keep the center open the same hours it has been for our clients. But even that may prove to be a challenge.”

For many years now, Cappalappa has been a resource for connecting Moapa Valley families in need with services that are available to help them. The center provides a food bank for needy families. It is also the local access point for the USDA Commodities program. Cappalappa staff members assist local families in applying for food stamps, social security benefits, welfare and other services. They have programs to distribute supplies and clothing to needy kids when it is time to go back to school and to provide Christmas gifts and food to families in need during the holidays. They provide diapers, baby formula and other supplies to local moms who are in need. And they offer an education component which includes parenting classes and babysitting training for local youth.

These are just a few of the services offered at Cappalappa to a surprisingly large segment of the community, Doty said. During the height of the recession, the center had more than 1,200 open cases. Economic conditions have gotten better since then. But last year Cappalappa staffers managed about 750 open cases.

The center averages around 800 clients per year. Doty points to that number as a high percentage in the community. “In the greater Moapa Valley communities, that is about 10 percent of the population, which is pretty significant,” he said.
County staff said last week that part of the reason for the cutback was due to administrative timing. Janice Ridondo, of Commissioner Marilyn Kirkpatrick’s office, pointed out that, in recent years, the OAG process had gotten far off of schedule.

With the fiscal year starting in July, grants are supposed to be approved by that time as well. But over the past few years, that process has been pushed further and further into the fiscal year. This caused the receiving agencies to receive grant monies later and later in the fiscal year. Over time, the agencies had adjusted and adapted. Many had not spent the grant money that they were still receiving from the previous cycle, Ridondo said. She added that it was the Commissioner’s understanding that this round was just a stop-gap measure to get the whole process back on track.

“It had gotten completely off schedule,” Ridondo said. “No one was able to match their books anymore. And the government has to be able to close out certain financial documents by the end of each fiscal year. So this was just to get things back on track.”

Ridondo pointed out that the application period for the next fiscal year had opened earlier this month on January 9. The deadline for pre-application materials is this Friday and the deadline for completing the entire OAG application is February 3. All non-profit groups interested in OAG funding are being urged to apply for the grants, she said.

These grants will be awarded for the 2017-2018 fiscal year and funds will be available at the beginning of the fiscal year in July, Ridondo said. “That is back to the way things are supposed to be working,” she said. “It will ultimately make things easier on everyone.”

Ridondo emphasized however, that OAG money is in much higher demand now than it has been in the past.
“I can tell you that there is a new commissioner and some different areas of focus,” Ridondo said. “There are lots of folks who are asking for funding that never got funding before. That means that organizations can’t get comfortable and just think that whoever is writing a check is going to do that every year. As things grow and evolve, those decisions become more and more difficult.”

With that being true, the Cappalappa FRC is looking to return to the community for help in funding the center.
“We have been providing an essential service for many years now and we haven’t really asked the community for donations for about ten years now,” Doty said.

That is because donations of gently used items at the Cappalappa Thrift store, and positive sales numbers at the store, have supplied a solid enough funding source over the years to fill the gaps in the center’s budget.
But now that gap has become much larger. Cappalappa will have to aim for more donations from the community to stay afloat, Doty said. He points out that, as a 501c3, people can make tax-deductible donations to the center. Also residents are encouraged to organize local drives for things like diapers, formula and unused gift cards that can be distributed to local families in need.

“This community has always been very supportive of our efforts,” Doty said. “Folks have always stepped up and met the need whatever it was. Now we are just in a place where we need a little more support.”

There were a few local non-profits who did receive OAG funding in last week’s Commission action. The Overton Senior Center received $13,570 for a senior nutrition program. The Moapa Valley Revitalization Project received $5,000 for its Main Street improvement project. And the Moapa Town Advisory Board received $1,500 to fund the installation of a new “Welcome to Moapa” sign.

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