Rehabilitation Grant Program

Rehabilitation Grant Program I'm Lacy Gray with Washington Ag Today. The Washington Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation's Heritage Barn Rehabilitation Grant Program Administrator Allyson Brooks is back today to talk about the success of the program since its inception in 2007. BROOKS: It's been a tremendously popular program. We have 500 barns on our Heritage Barn register. We've given out almost a million dollars in grants since 2007. We now have another half million dollars to give out. Brooks explains how barn owners can go about receiving grant funding. BROOKS: In order to be able to receive a grant you have to be listed with our agency as a heritage barn and that's not very difficult to do. It's a one page form with a photograph, and it's a really simple process. Once you're on that register you can apply for one of the barn grants, and priority is given to working farms. There is a matching dollar component for applicants. BROOKS: It's a 50/50 match. The match does not necessarily have to be cash. It can be what's called "in kind match", which means labor. Whatever hours you put into working on your barn we'll calculate so much an hour as though you were actually getting paid. Brooks says the program can be a small economic driver for communities. BROOKS: We find that barn owners tend to buy their supplies locally. We had one heritage barn owner state to us that all the contractors he used were within forty miles of his barn. Barns must be at least fifty years old and be listed as a heritage barn. The next deadline for barn owners interested in nominating their barn to the Heritage Barn Register is October 1. October 28 is the deadline to apply for funding in the 2013-15 biennium. For more information visit dahp.wa.gov. That's Washington Ag Today. I'm Lacy Gray on the Ag Information Network.