Chattooga County Commissioner Blake Elsberry says that he plans to donate $5,000 to each of the county’s ten fire departments using funds from the 2021 American Rescue Plan.

The funds were sent to the county by the Federal government for COVID pandemic relief.  Commissioner Elsberry says that since fire departments were not able to raise money during the pandemic, the $5,000 will be beneficial.  Each of the counties ten fire departments receive less than $10,000 each year from the county government.  The rest of their funds are raised individually by each department.

The county also pays the insurance for each fire hall and pays into the firefighters cancer insurance policy, which is a state mandate.