Riverboat Foundation Gives Out Over $600,000 In Competitive Grants

Inwood, Iowa — For the first time since the Grand Falls Casino was opened, the Lyon County Riverboat Foundation has held a grant ceremony somewhere other than the casino. And they gave out over $600,000 in grants.

The ceremony was held at the Lake Pahoja Education Center, which was built with the aid of a grant from the foundation. Instead of hor d’oeuvres from the culinary staff of the casino and resort, they were provided by Shari’s Kitchen & Catering in Rock Rapids.

Some of the larger grants given were nearly $220,000 to the Lyon County Fair Association toward the remodeling of the 4-H Building, $100,000 to the City of Rock Rapids toward the extension of the Recreational Trail system, about $52,500 to Rock Rapids Kiwanis toward playground equipment, and $40,000 to the Larchwood Baseball Club toward a new outfield fence. Other organizations receiving funding included Inwood Fire/Rescue, the Rapids Theatre Preservation Society, the Matlock Fire Department, Northwest Iowa Community College, the Little Rock Town & Country Club, the City of Alvord, the City of George, Immanuel Lutheran Church of Rock Rapids, the Larchwood Public Library, the Siouxland Food Bank, and the City of Inwood Recreation Department.

The board has not been awarding any new multi-cycle grants for the last few years, according to foundation president Randy Waagmeester. He says they continue to make payments on two of them from past years, however, including a payment of $75,000 to Rock Rapids Kids Club for their daycare and $100,000 to the Merrill Pioneer Hospital Association toward the hospital that was built in Rock Rapids.

The other side of the grant coin is the money that’s given to government subdivisions in Lyon County every quarter. Those present also heard an update about how much has been given out to those entities in 2021, and since the inception of the foundation. Those amounts can be found under the competitive grant table below.

Grants to cities are based on population. Grants given to cities this year ranged from a total of nearly $60,000 for Lyon County’s smallest town of Alvord to a total of nearly $72,000 for the county’s largest town of Rock Rapids. Each school district has received about $196,500 in 2021, and Lyon County government has received about $83,000.