First Source for Women Director Catherine Bethell accepts a grant check from the CCCDC.

Fire departments, schools and other nonprofits were awarded with the most recent grant checks from the Cullman County Community Development Commission on Monday afternoon, with more than $100,000 going to support their efforts in the community. 

The grants were awarded at the CCCDC’s quarterly meeting earlier this month, but the recipients gathered on Monday to actually receive their $12,000 checks, which will go to pay for new equipment for fire departments, Christmas charities, curriculum materials and other undertakings to help or provide something for people in the community. 

The Jones Chapel Volunteer Fire Department applied for a $12,000 grant to help pay for a new electrical rescue tool, which will be used for vehicle rescues, said Assistant Chief Clint Thrasher. 

He said the department currently has a hydraulic gas-powered rescue tool, but the new electric one will be battery powered and easier to transport and use at the scene of a crash. 

“We’re going to place it on a Tahoe so we don’t have to get a big truck out, and we can maneuver it around a little bit better,” he said. 

Bethsadia Volunteer Fire Department Assistant Chief Maurice Reynolds said his department applied for an automatic CPR device, which can provide much more efficient and consistent CPR than a person is able to do.  

He said a cardiac arrest call usually does not have very high odds of survival for the person the department is trying to save, but the one call he’s been on in which someone was brought back while suffering from cardiac arrest was one in which an automatic CPR device was being used.

“It’s good to have that,” he said. 

With volunteer fire departments seeing fewer and fewer volunteers coming out, a piece of equipment that can do a job that a person would otherwise be doing is very beneficial, Reynolds said. 

“It’s basically a lifesaver for us too,” he said. 

Grants awarded in this round of CCCDC funding included:

• White City Community Center- $12,000 to fund rebuilding efforts after the center was torn down due to heavy damage from a tornado in 2019.
• Hanceville Fire Rescue- $12,000 to purchase equipment for the department’s new fire truck.
• Cullman Regional Medical Center Foundation- $12,000 to help pay for the expansion of the hospital’s Critical Care Unit.
• Cullman County Community Corrections- $12,000 to help establish a veterans court.
• First Source for Women- $12,000 to help pay for equipment for the organization’s new Cullman office.
• Curt’s Closet- $12,000 to help pay for Curt’s Christmas (Christmas Love).
• Town of West Point- $12,000 to help repair a retaining wall at the town’s ball park.
• Jones Chapel Volunteer Fire Department- $12,000 for new electrical rescue tools.
• Cullman Christian School- $12,000 to pay for new curriculum materials.
• Bethsadia Volunteer Fire Department- $12,000 to purchase an automatic CPR device.