Lehigh Valley 250<\/a> organizers, will help support educational programs, performances, tourism initiatives and community events commemorating 250 years of American independence.<\/p>\n\u201cToday we announced that Lehigh Valley 250 was awarded a million dollars from the state, both from a bipartisan, bicameral effort,\u201d said Jessica Edris, project administrator for Lehigh Valley 250.<\/p>\n
Edris said the funding follows years of collaboration among local organizations, community partners and state lawmakers across the Lehigh Valley.<\/p>\n
The effort also highlighted rare bipartisan cooperation in Harrisburg, according to Democratic state Sen. Lisa Boscola.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Senate is Republican majority, the House is Democrat majority, we have a Democratic governor,\u201d Boscola said. \u201cYou can\u2019t do anything unless you work together. If you\u2019re going to be a region that wants to secure funding dollars, you have to work together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Edris compared the partnership behind the initiative to the cooperation that helped shape the nation\u2019s founding.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt really is very similar to the work that got the Declaration of Independence written in the first place,\u201d Edris said. \u201cIt was a group of people who came together with some ideas and decided to work toward that same goal. And now today, we have the ability to celebrate all of that good work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Organizers also announced a new grant opportunity for local businesses and organizations planning anniversary-related events.<\/p>\n
According to Edris, a webpage launching Thursday will allow groups to apply for grants of up to $5,000 to support events connected to the nation\u2019s semiquincentennial celebration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EASTON, Pa. \u2014 Community leaders and elected officials gathered in Easton on Thursday to celebrate a $1 million…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205247,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,74951,157],"class_list":["post-205246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-america-250th-anniversary","tag-lehigh-valley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205246\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}