Small Department Wins FEMA Funds Two Years in a Row
Monroeville, Indiana (pop. 1,200) -- Carol Eickelberg-Poor of Monroeville, Indiana, is a grant writer for the Monroeville Volunteer Fire Department who appealed successfully to FEMA two years in a row. In 2002, the department was awarded with $47,408 to support the purchase of a thermal imager, new facemasks, an air compressor, and a fill station. In 2003, the department was awarded with $150,000 to purchase a new truck.
Demonstrating need: “Explain why your department is unable to budget for the expenditure and why you are in need of assistance from FEMA. The more you know about local, county and state fiscal issues that constrain the department, the more solid your grant will be. The Monroeville FEMA grant application noted the need for firefighters to borrow equipment from neighboring departments due to inadequate local funding, and it explained the inability of local and state entities to support the department.”
Justifying TIs: “Your organization will need to show how you can serve your community more effectively if the grant were funded. Get as specific as you can about how firefighters and the community can benefit from thermal imaging. For example, the Monroeville 2002 FEMA application noted the danger of silo fires to firefighters and the surrounding community and explained how thermal imaging affects the speed of fighting these fires.”
Keys to success: “When you’re demonstrating need in a grant application, you walk a fine line… You want to present your department as capable, while at the same time showing your need for money and why you can’t get enough on your own to make the purchase. Always focus on how you could serve the community more effectively if you were to get the grant, rather than focusing on how hard you’re working. Show every need. For example, when I wrote the narrative in the appeal for a truck, I talked about the fact that our truck was the second oldest in the county, that it wasn’t safe, and that the repairs on the truck were so over the top that we couldn’t do it anymore.”