Overton Considering $50,000 Grant For Community Center Upgrades

Overton County Community Centers could get upgrades through a $50,000 T-Mobile Hometown Grant.

The county commission will consider applying for the grant on Monday night. County Executive Ben Danner said the main idea is to improve the Monroe Community Center, possibly creating something similar to the county agriculture building.

Danner said residents need better accessibility and more room at voting time.

“Community has been a strong thing for generation’s in our own county,” Danner said. “It’s a long way between Alpine and Hilham and Hardys Chapel. That’s a long ways apart, which we’ve got a big county geographically and just want to help as many of the communities as we can.”

Danner said that depending on what can be done in Monroe, there are opportunities to do renovations at the Hilham or Hardys Chapel Community Centers. He said that community center improvements are not dependent on the T-Mobile grant, he said COVID funding is the backup plan.

“A lot of the commissioners in the whole county go to Monroe, you know I’ve always said I wish we had a Cracker Barrel here in Livingston,” Danner said. “We don’t have one but we’ve got the Monroe Community Center. They’ve got really good meals there and a lot of the commissioners and elected officials and other people go.”

Danner said that because the county has not specified which community center they want to improve, he said multiple facilities could get improvements. This is not a matching grant, Overton County would not have to apply any of its own money unless it wanted to.