Georgia Commissioner of Agriculture Tyler Harper has extended the application deadline for Hurricane Helene Relief and we caught up with Commissioner Harper to learn more.
Commissioner Harper said, “So we announced an extension of the block grant application period strictly due to the current state of emergency that we’re under. You know, the governor issued a state of emergency for the wildfires that are ongoing in southeast Georgia. You know, obviously a lot of that part of the state was also ravaged by Hurricane Helene. We just thought it was the right thing to do, the prudent thing to do. So those folks can be concerned about protecting their homes and their backyards and working on that, not worried about trying to get an application filled out before a deadline of this upcoming Monday.”
“So we extended that application for two weeks to May 11th at midnight now. And so we’re obviously encouraging folks to get it in by that new extended deadline, but it was definitely due to just the extenuating circumstances we have ongoing with the wildfires down in the southeastern part of the state and those individuals that are impacted by that. But we’ve been working with our partners to do our part and we look forward to continuing to doing just that as this issue continues to move forward. But we just need rain at the end of the day. That helps us with the drought. That helps us with these wildfires and praying for rain as much as we can as well. And I want to encourage your listeners to do the same. Our folks could use a significant rain from the good Lord right now,” said Harper.
Audio Reporting by Dale Sandlin for Southeast AgNet