Applications for Round 2 of Cessnock City Council’s Bushfire Community Recovery and Resilience Grant (BCRRF) are now open.

The funding is designed to support small scale, community-led projects that promote recovery, resilience, disaster preparedness and wellbeing support following the 2019/20 bushfires that impacted parts of the Cessnock Local Government Area (LGA).

The BCRRF is open to community groups, sporting groups, schools, charities and not-for-profit organisations based in the Cessnock LGA, and groups can apply for grants of up to $10,000.

Cessnock City General Manager, Lotta Jackson said Council is dedicated to providing ongoing support to Cessnock’s bushfire-affected residents.

“Listening to those most heavily impacted by bushfire is vital to effective recovery and resilience. While it has been almost 2 years since the bushfires, we recognise the need for continued support of community-led resilience and preparedness projects.”

Council’s Community Recovery Officer, Melissa Boucher said the grants are also aimed at supporting communities to overcome the social impacts of bushfires.

“Through Round 1 of the BCRRF, Council funded 9 fantastic projects led by community groups. We’d love to see more groups apply for Round 2 so we can get behind locally driven initiatives that not only focus on physical resilience and preparedness but social and mental wellbeing.”

Applications close at 5pm on Friday 14 January 2022. Successful applicants will be announced by Monday 7 February 2022 and projects must be completed by 30 June 2022.

Visit www.cessnock.nsw.gov.au/BCRRF for grant guidelines and to make an application. Enquiries should be directed to Community Recovery Officer, Melissa Boucher on 4993 4100 or council@cessnock.nsw.gov.au.

Council’s BCRRF grants are made available via funding from the joint Commonwealth-State Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements.