Several Northeast Georgia communities have been selected U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development grant recipients.
On Tuesday, Gov. Sonny Perdue announced that more than $35 million in Community Development Block Grant money had been allocated to communities statewide.
"The Community Development Block Grant program provides an essential financial resource to Georgia's smaller communities in their efforts to fund projects that will assist low- and moderate-income citizens," Perdue said.
"As communities large and small are making tough spending choices, (these grants) represent an important funding source for various local quality of life, economic development and job creation programs."
Both the Lumpkin County and the Towns County senior centers received grant funding.
Lumpkin officials said their $300,000 grant will be used to expand their senior center, while Towns officials have even larger plans for their $500,000.
"We're going to build a new senior center. The present one is 25 years old and is used heavily for a lot of different community activities," said Towns Commissioner Bill Kendall.
"This is the third year that we applied for a grant. But we were turned down the other two years, so we are really happy to be selected this time.
"We're looking at a couple of different locations (for the new center). One is near the lake, so maybe we could have some walking trails."
Relocating the senior center will free up additional office space to be used by the county's courthouse and other agencies, Kendall said.
Overall, more than 70 Georgia communities will directly benefit from the grants. Other local entities include the cities of Commerce, Cornelia and Dawson.
Commerce and Dawson received $500,000 each for sewer improvement projects, while Cornelia received $490,610 for water and sewer improvements.
The HUD money will be administered by the Georgia Department of Community Affairs. Some of the other funded projects include domestic violence centers, substandard housing rehabilitation and health facilities.