VALDOSTA — Sidewalks and safety will be open for discussion on April 27 at 6 p.m. at Lowndes Middle School.
Faculty, parents and community members will have the opportunity to learn more about a grant that could make the walk to the middle school much safer for students.
There are currently no sidewalks on Copeland Road, where the school is located. Though a county school, there are several neighborhoods surrounding Lowndes Middle School.
Safety concerns and a desire to see more kids walk to school has prompted the school and the Lowndes County Board of Commissioners to enlist the help of the South Georgia Regional Development Center in applying for a grant to address these issues.
Safe Routes to School is a federally funded grant that has become highly competitive in Georgia recently, said Corey Hull, South Georgia Regional Development Center Metropolitan Planning Organization coordinator.
Grant moneys are awarded once a year, usually in the fall, Hull said.
Consideration of the grant revolves around two aspects, infrastructure and non-infrastructure, said David Morgan, Georgia Department of Transportation planner.
Non-infrastructure is the data collected about the viability of the infrastructure.
The more data collected and sent with the grant proposal, the higher the chances of getting approved for the grant, Hull said.
Morgan said the coming months will involve the preparation of documents to go with the grant.
Information on how many students walk to school, the neighborhoods they walk from and who would like to walk but doesn’t will need to be documented, he said. Surveys will be dispensed to the school’s local neighborhoods to gain an accurate number of students within walking distance to the school.
Morgan will host the public presentation on April 27 to discuss the purpose of the grant and community involvement. The open meeting will be a kickoff to get the project off the ground, Morgan said.
They will be looking for potential volunteers to help compile data for the grant, he said.
Last year more than 60 proposals were submitted for the grant money, which totaled around $4 million, Hull said.
The total cost of the proposals were more than $25 million.
Lowndes Middle School parent Gloria Rose is heading up the parent involvement aspect of the grant and will be working closely with the South Georgia Regional Development Center on the project.
“It’s a good program for the county school to help our children be safe,” Rose said.
Though Rose’s son attends Lowndes Middle School, they do not live in a neighborhood near the school.
That doesn’t mean the issue is not important to Rose.
“This is not just about my children. It’s about the overall picture,” she said.
Those interested in volunteering can contact the school at 245-2280.
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