City of Gig Harbor offering a second round of grants to boost tourism after COVID-19
The City of Gig Harbor is offering a second round of grants to nonprofit organizations that are “operating events or installations that attract tourism” to the city. The grants have typically been offered in the fall; this is the first time they have been offered twice in one year.
In a release Tuesday, the city said the total grant funding available was $50,000, with a maximum of $20,000 for any single applicant. The grant comes from money the city had set aside from the lodging tax. Known as Lodging Tax Advisory Committee (LTAC) funds, the money is collected by the state throughout the year from hotel stays in city limits. It’s then distributed annually from the state to the city.
Those who are interested in applying can visit the city’s tax grant website to fill out an application, which is due by March 31 at 5 p.m. The applications will then be reviewed by the Lodging Advisory Tax Committee.
Laura Pettitt, tourism and communications director for the city, told The Gateway that “the hope is to fund as many projects as we can.”
“What we want to see is how this is going to drive tourism to Gig Harbor, how this is going to drive business,” Pettit said. “That can be for overnight stays, that’s a measurable component, but also for day-trippers as well.”
Past recipients of the grant include the Gig Harbor Film Festival, Harbor History Museum, Peninsula Art League, Race for a Soldier, Harbor WildWatch, Gig Harbor BoatShop, and the Downtown Waterfront Alliance’s Waterfront Farmers’ Market.
Pettit said the decision to offer the funds was made with the pandemic recovery in mind.
“This is a time of need for our community to bump up tourism when things start to reopen,” Pettit said. “We want to make sure we’re giving the most of our resources to our community members to do that.” The funds must be used before the end of the 2021 calendar year; Pettit hopes there can be some sort of “normalcy” come summertime.
“These funds are essentially out there to plan for the worst but hope for the best,” Pettit said. “If the event is not able to happen, we can’t give those funds.” In that case, the funds would just roll over to the next year.
For Chris Jones, president of the Gig Harbor Film Festival, funds like these are crucial.
“The funding coming into this year was significantly important,” Jones said. “As with many organizations, COVID has put a real damper on our ability to fundraise and, in some cases, our sources for that fundraising.”
The film festival previously received a grant of $20,000 for this year’s event, currently scheduled for September.
“That’s a pretty big number,” Jones said. “It’s about a quarter, just a bit under, a quarter of our total spend budget. So it’s a big commitment from the city and very meaningful to our overall funding effort coming into this year.”
Jones said that the amount is the largest the organization has ever received.
“We have received money prior but this is on the order of, at least for us, double,” Jones said.
The organization won’t be seeking any further funding on this go-round as it is already at the maximum level of funding allowed.
“We’re going to stick with what we have, we’re going to be okay coming through this festival,” Jones said. “We have a few other things we are still working on but we are confident that we will have the funding necessary to throw a world-class festival.”
Jones said that they will apply next year.
Reach Chase Hutchinson at chase.hutchinson@thenewstribune.com
This story was originally published February 17, 2021 at 5:30 AM.
