ARC is carefully and continually monitoring the COVID-19 situation as it is impacting the Appalachian Region. ARC staff, who are now primarily working from home, are diligently continuing to process and administer grants, new applications, progress reports, and payment requests as they are received.
We are assisting grantees whom are unable to meet project goals or timelines due to the current situation. If you are a current ARC grantee experiencing such challenges, please email your ARC project coordinator and state program manager as soon as possible for help with needed accommodations regarding your project’s deliverables, timelines, budget, or other operations. (When emailing, please put your ARC project number in the subject line. This will make responding to your request easier).
To support the health and safety of our partners, grantees, and communities, we have also made the following adjustments:
- We have extended the application deadline for the Appalachian Entrepreneurship Academy to March 31, 2020. Should this program, or the ARC/ORNL Summer STEM program, need to be modified further, an announcement will be made in mid-April.
- We have extended the deadline for POWER applications to April 24, 5 pm ET. Additional revisions can also be made to applications already submitted to power.arc.gov during this thirty day extension.
- We are convening the Appalachian Leadership Institute virtually through online learning modules in lieu of the upcoming field seminars scheduled for Beckley, West Virginia and Boone, North Carolina.
- We have postponed Envision Appalachia: Community Conversations for ARC’s New Strategic Plan. Our intent is to restart our strategic planning process at a time when we can gather in-person to discuss our Region’s future.
We will be posting any additional ARC operational updates on www.arc.gov/coronavirus, and in forthcoming issues of In The Region.
This is a challenging time for our communities, our Region, and our country. Please continue to check with state and federal authorities for health-related guidance and information.