Effective Aug. 14, the Lehigh County Board of Commissioners voted to create funding streams to provide relief for nonprofits, tourism, regional entities and educational and workforce entities.

This is in addition to a fund already established to provide emergency aid for small businesses.

In order to maximize transparency, the county has enlisted the help of community partners to promote the grant programs as well as receive, organize and help process the applications.

United Way of the Lehigh Valley will assist with the nonprofit fund, Lehigh Valley Workforce Investment Board will assist with the education/workforce broadband fund and Discover Lehigh Valley will assist with the tourism and regional fund.

The source of funds for these programs is the Lehigh County COVID-19 Block grant.

Applications for relief from these grant funds must directly correlate with COVID-19 expenses.

All related expenses can be charged from March 1 to Dec. 30.

All COVID-19 grant funds must be spent by Dec. 30.

Applications will be processed by the corresponding community organization as noted above.

They will be reviewed by primary committees and submitted to the county executive who will then make recommendations to the Lehigh County Board of Commissioners.

These programs as well as the small business program are authorized under the Lehigh County COVID-19 Block grant of $33.3 million received under the CARES Act:

• $8 million for county/municipal government COVID-19 response offset;

• $5 million for small business grant pool;

• $6 million for drug, alcohol, behavioral health and Human Services;

• $5 million for nonprofit and community entities;

• $5 million for regional co-operation and tourism; and

• $4 million for broadband, education and workforce assistance.

Applications for all Lehigh County COVID-19 relief grant programs can be found on the Lehigh County website at lehighcounty.org.