Today, Congressman Patrick McHenry announced a U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) grant in the amount of $81,225 to a local fire department in the Tenth Congressional District.

The grant will go to the Bandy’s Crossroads Volunteer Fire Department in Catawba County, and comes in the twenty-first round of this year’s Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program (AFG), which aims to help firefighters and first responders throughout the country.  Local departments applied for the grants, and the program is administered by the Department’s Preparedness Directorate’s Office of Grants and Training. 

Bandy’s Crossroads is the second Catawba County fire department to receive AFG funding in this year’s cycle, following Long View Fire Department which was funded in Round 15. 

The grant funds will go towards purchasing vital fire and rescue equipment.  “This is the second AFG Grant that Bandy’s Crossroads Volunteer Fire Department has received in the last three funding cycles,” stated Congressman McHenry.  “I was happy to visit Bandy’s Crossroads in 2006 to present a check for the grant the department received that year and I congratulate them on another impressive application.”

Last fiscal year, twenty-eight departments in the Tenth Congressional District received AFG funding for a total of $3,138,123 in funds disbursed.  Thus far in this year’s fiscal cycle, $1,090,199 has been awarded to eighteen departments in the Tenth District and at least one department in each of the district’s ten counties has received a grant.

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