CHAMBERSBURG – The Franklin County Commissioners announced that grants are available to support projects and initiatives to combat the ongoing opioid epidemic. Money for these grants, to be administered by Franklin/Fulton Drug and Alcohol, comes from Franklin County’s allotment from two nationwide settlements with drug manufacturers and distributors.
Four separate grant opportunities are available to Franklin County organizations and other entities for prevention programs and abatement strategies to stem future opioid use across the county. Based on recommendations of the county’s opioid settlement steering committee, the grants focus on each of the following areas:
- Prevention programs to prevent the misuse of opioids;
- Harm reduction to prevent overdose deaths and other harms;
- Expansion of warm hand-off programs, recovery services and support of people in treatment and recovery; and
- Efforts to address the needs of pregnant or parenting women and their families, including babies with neonatal abstinence syndrome
Each grant application outlines specific eligible uses based on the parameters of the national settlements. The applications also detail recommended grant amounts as well as the application timeline. Applications are available under the County Grant Opportunities section of the Franklin County website, www.franklincountypa.gov. Questions about the application or grant process should be directed to James Eagler, Franklin/Fulton Drug & Alcohol administrator, at jmeagler@franklincountypa.gov. All applications must be submitted by 4 p.m. Aug. 28.
“While we’ll never be able to undo the destruction the opioid epidemic has wrought on our communities, these grants will enable the creation of abatement strategies and programs designed to stem the use and effects of opioids in the future,” said Franklin County Commissioner Chairman Dean Horst.
Franklin County is one of nearly 2,800 counties across the country that will receive funding through two settlements as a result of a multistate investigation into the manufacture, distribution and promotion of opioids. Through these agreements, several drug manufacturers, drug distributors and pharmacy chains will pay billions of dollars over the next two decades for their roles in the opioid crisis.
Pennsylvania will receive more than $2.2 billion through these settlements, and individual counties have started to receive that money for remediation efforts on the local level. Franklin County and local municipalities with more than 10,000 residents – the Borough of Chambersburg, the Borough of Waynesboro and Antrim, Hamilton, Greene, Guilford and Washington townships – partnered to secure the maximum awards available to Franklin County, which could be as much as $6.5 million distributed in installments through 2040.
