Golden Leaf Foundation Presents CAI Grant Process

Wednesday evening Pat Cabe of the Golden Leaf Foundation came to Windsor to talk with local officials about a new program offered to spend the money that was wrested from tobacco smokers by the legal profession. These billions were directed to be spent helping the people who were harmed by tobacco.






The new program to dispense money has been deemed the Community Assistance Initiative. This money is separate from the regular Golden Leaf grant efforts. This money has been reserved for certain counties to have a significant say in how it is spent, as long as they petition Golden Leaf in a specific way.







After a description of the new process, an explanation of how it worked for the first 8 counties who were selected, and some suggestions of how to focus Bertie Counties efforts, the outlines of the process were provided. One of the people present to promote the concept was our own State of NC representative to the General Assembly, Representative Ann Mobley (shown above). She mentioned that she was born here in Bertie County and wanted Bertie County to make sure they got their fair share of this new pool of money.





The crowd present was asked to return for the next step in the process, a start of discussions on how to establish priorities and to organize the evaluation of project proposals for Bertie County. That next meeting in the process will be held on September 9th, 2008 at 7:00 PM in the Senior Center on School Street.