While the Washington County Riverboat Foundation gives 25% of its funds to the county’s cities annually, for the first time the foundation board heard first hand how those funds are being used during their monthly meeting Wednesday.

Representatives from Ainsworth, Brighton, Crawfordsville, Kalona, Riverside, Washington, Wellman, and West Chester informed board members at the Washington YMCA Community Room of how they’ve used the municipal grants in the past, and how they plan to use this year’s funds. Foundation Executive Director Patty Koller then distributed the first quarter checks to all the cities. Several board members including President Shawn Ellingson expressed their appreciation of hearing about the cities’ projects face to face, “It’s nice to see for those that maybe don’t have all the income to do [those things] it’s great to be able to help out with those projects that are so important, like sewer and water, because that stuff would get put off for a long time. And then the neat projects, the little more exciting projects, those are things that probably wouldn’t be done. I think it just helps our county as a whole, as a destination. So thank you guys for organizing that, we appreciate it.”

The board also discussed the next steps for determining recipients of their spring small grant cycle, of which they have received 56 applications. They will vote to approve these recipients on May 5th, though there will be no formal check presentation.