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Macon approves emergency funds for KIDS Place Nonprofit sees a 67 percent cut in funds BY J ESSI STONE N EWS E DITOR acon County commissioners recently approved $55,000 worth of emergency funds to KIDS Place Child Advocacy Center to ensure the nonprofit can continue to offer services to children who’ve experienced trauma. Executive Director Alisha Ashe came before the board at the July 13 meeting to ask for some assistance to make up for funding cuts being made at the national level. While Ashe said she was told last fall to expect cuts up to 35 percent from the Victims of Crime Act funding, she learned a few weeks ago that the actual cut in funding for KIDS Place would be 67 percent for the coming year. “In our 30-year history, we’ve never come before this board to make this kind of request. I didn’t anticipate that we would need to,” she told commissioners. In addition to the cut from the Victims of Crime Act, which is a national pot of money collected from white collar crimes to distribute to those impacted by crimes, Ashe said grants have been harder to come by in recent years. “We’re working with national partners to get that fixed and they’ll be voting on that
Smoky Mountain News
July 28-August 3, 2021
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issue soon. There’s widespread support in Washington. It’s not a quick fix though — the trickle down to KIDS Place will be three to four years,” Ashe said. A competitive grant KIDS Place has received for the last two years to provide additional mental health services and expand medical services that are hard to access in a rural community was also discontinued. Without the grant, KIDS Place wouldn’t have the state-of-the-art equipment it has and more children would have to be sent all the way to Asheville for evaluation. “The competitive grant was for $171,000 over two years and it was cut,” she said. “What it meant for us is that our base funding went from $315,000 to $109,000.” Ashe said she’s been working to cut their budget to “bare bones” and still needs $105,000 to meet that bare bones budget. She said she was confident the organization could raise $35,000 in the community by reaching out to its loyal donor base. “But it’s hard because everyone is hurting,” she said. “We’re asking the county to give us $75,000 to help us continue to provide services for these children without cutting our services.” For the most part, KIDS Place operates fairly quietly, and that is by design, Ashe said, but the organization does provide valuable services for the county. When a law enforcement officer
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Highlands Police Officer Tim Broughton, (from left) KIDS Place Executive Director Alisa Ashe, and Franklin Fireman Greg pictures at Safety Day in Downtown Franklin. Donated photo
