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Grants news
Thanks to a $15,900 grant from Bluebonnet Electric Cooperative and the Lower Colorado River Authority, Bastrop County First Responders will purchase two new heart monitors to improve emergency care for cardiac patients.
The Community Development Partnership Program grant will allow the nonprofit organization to replace cardiac monitors that were recently de-certified for use under new federal guidelines. The new monitors will be able to diagnose symptoms of a heart attack; act as defibrillators; track and adjust a patient’s heart rhythm; and perform 12-lead electrocardiogram tests.
Bastrop County First Responders, a nonprofit organization whose members include paramedics and emergency medical technicians, is contributing $4,000 in matching funds toward the purchase.
“These monitors are required for us to provide advanced life support,” said James Green, president of Bastrop County First Responders. “With these, we can utilize our paramedics to their full potential, and they can provide more medicines and more therapies to patients.”
Green said Bastrop County First Responders frequently provides stand-by emergency service at public events across the county, including rodeos and car shows. The group’s paramedics and EMTs respond to calls in their personal vehicles.
“We’re kind of like a volunteer fire department, but it’s just for EMS,” Green said. “We’re available to provide more hands if needed.”
The de-certification of his organization’s older heart monitors came as an “unbudgeted surprise,” Green said. “We had pretty late notice that this was happening, and we were behind the eight ball. Without this grant, we’d really be up the creek without a paddle right now.”
The community grant is one of six grants being awarded by Bluebonnet and the LCRA through LCRA’s Community Development Partnership Program, which helps volunteer fire departments, local governments, emergency responders and nonprofit organizations fund capital improvement projects in LCRA’s wholesale electric, water and transmission service areas. The program is part of LCRA’s effort to give back to the communities it serves. Bluebonnet Electric Cooperative is one of LCRA’s wholesale electric customers and is a partner in the grant program.
Applications for the next round of grants will be accepted in July. More information is available here.
A $24,093 grant from the Lower Colorado River Authority and Bluebonnet Electric Cooperative will help pay for needed repairs and upgrades to a historic Chappell Hill library built in the early 1900s.
The grant, along with $7,000 in matching funds, will allow the Chappell Hill Historical Society to make exterior repairs to the Chappell Hill Circulating Library, as well as add an energy-efficient air conditioner and rainwater collection system. The project also will include painting the library and a popular adjacent gazebo, and landscaping.
“It will be a general re-do for the library, and we’re just so grateful for the grant,” said Dottie Schaer, a longtime volunteer with the historical society who helped organize the project.
The library houses about 3,500 historic or contemporary volumes.
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the library was designed by architect J.W. Heartfield and was built in a Colonial Revival style. The building features a semi-circular portico supported by two Doric columns.
The Chappell Hill Circulating Library Association formed in 1893, and much of its initial collection was donated by the family of W.G. Foote Sr., a Methodist minister who was a professor at Chappell Hill's Soule University during the mid-19th century. In 1912, the year the library was built, its collection grew significantly when Chappell Hill Female College donated many of its books after the school closed.
Dottie Schaer and her husband, John, who sits on the historical society’s board of directors, say the project will help re-invigorate the library and draw more students, researchers and history buffs to Chappell Hill.
The gazebo on the property has been a popular spot for weddings, family photos and other events in the past, and the additional landscaping will make the site useful again.
“It’s a really nice gathering place,” Dottie Schaer said. “We want to make an area where people can come and relax and learn, too. Everybody’s very excited that we can bring this historic building, this beloved library, back to life.”
The community grant is one of five grants being awarded by Bluebonnet and the LCRA through LCRA’s Community Development Partnership Program, which helps volunteer fire departments, local governments, emergency responders and nonprofit organizations fund capital improvement projects in LCRA’s wholesale electric, water and transmission service areas. The program is part of LCRA’s effort to give back to the communities it serves. Bluebonnet Electric Cooperative is one of LCRA’s wholesale electric customers and is a partner in the grant program.
Applications for the next round of grants will be accepted in January. More information is available at lcra.org/cdpp.
Community Grant program
We’ve partnered with LCRA’s Community Grant program, which helps volunteer fire departments, local governments, emergency responders and nonprofit organizations fund capital improvement projects in LCRA’s wholesale electric, water and transmission service areas.
Applications for the next round of grants will be accepted in January of 2026. More information is available at LCRA's grant page.