Bamberg County employees Brittany M. Barnwell, Emergency Services Director and Mallory D. Biering, Keep Bamberg County Beautiful Director and Public Information Officer completed a grant certification course in the month of December. The course was taught by the University of South Carolina at the USC – Salkehatchie Facility and was paid for by SouthernCarolina Alliance.  

The course was offered after the need for this resource was presented at multiple South Carolina Promise Zone town hall and workgroup sessions. In an effort to ease the “expressed frustration in locating, researching, writing and winning grants,” the course was brought to help, “take full advantage of programs available within the South Carolina Promise Zone.”

The certification program was offered over a four day course, and allowed students to attend at no cost. Students covered course work including an introduction to grant writing, needs based assessments, intermediate grant writing and program evaluation. Each course allowed students the opportunity to hone their skills in grant writing, while also creating responses to grants and editing grant proposals.

Barnwell and Biering spent more than 30 hours completing the course where they produced responses to current grant applications and referenced past grant applications for areas where improvements could be made in writing.

“Brittany and Mallory are the first certified grant writers that Bamberg County has ever employed. While both of these employees have already written award winning grants, they now have the ability to improve on their skills and help Bamberg County progress to places where it has never been. We are proud to have two certified grant writers and are looking forward to more employees gaining this certification in the future.”

Barnwell and Biering shared, “Being able to take advantage of this great opportunity from SouthernCarolina Alliance is allowing us to acquire the needed knowledge as to how we can restore and enhance Bamberg County, to achieve a better life for the residents and visitors of Bamberg County. Every day we learned how we can improve; we discovered new grant sources; we took full advantage of the networking opportunities before us. Mr. Preston said that we are the first certified grant writers Bamberg County has ever employed and we are honored to have these skills and knowledge.”

Biering and Barnwell added they were both eagerly anticipating future opportunities to expand their departments with award winning grant proposals thanks to the County, the University of South Carolina and SouthernCarolina Alliance.

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