Digging for VA Grants

I received this email from Carolyn Crabtree who is the current head of the Boyle County Genalogy/History group. She has been working with me on ideas for funding our project.

-----Original Message-----From: Greg-Carolyn Crabtree [mailto:cgtree1492@earthlink.net]Sent: Thursday, August 02, 2007 9:32 PMTo: 'Bob Pipes'Subject: RE: Union Cemetery info
Bob,

I met someone today who is writing a book about the Supreme Court Justices. We have three from Kentucky. He was telling me that the Veterans Administration has some type of grant program for restoring cemeteries that contain the remains of soldiers. It seems you can apply for $1500 per soldier, no matter what war. If we can prove that there are five Revolutionary War soldiers, we may be eligible for $7500 for the cemetery restoration. Are you familiar with this?

I also talked to a family who has a slave cemetery on their property. A couple of years ago the state sent some cadaver dogs to his property to identify the location of the graves. I will try to find out if we can do something like that down at the Union Cemetery.

Carolyn

My Response to Carolyn:


Dear Carolyn,
As I am sure you know, there are many ins and outs and sometimes hidden nooks and crannies in Government rules, laws, policies and regulations.

I have searched high and low for information on the program you mentioned about the VA and cemeteries and all I can find is the one that allows Federal grants to States for cemeteries that are designated as "Veteran Cemeteries". i.e they are State cemeteries and are primarily for Veteran burials.

Maybe there is some obscure policy for private historical cemeteries that have veterans buried in them, but if so, I could not find it.

I will try next week to talk to a live person at the VA about it but looking on line I could not find it.
Regards,
Bob

The ones I did find are similar to this item below:
Program:
64.203 State Cemetery Grants
Federal Agency:
NATIONAL CEMETERY ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS
Authorization:
Veterans Housing Benefits Act of 1978, Section 202, Public Laws 95-476, 98-223, 100-687, 103-446, and 105-368; 38 U.S.C. 2408.
Program Number:
64.203
Last Known Status:
Active
Objectives:
To assist States in the establishment, expansion, and improvement of veterans' cemeteries.
Types of Assistance:
Project Grants.
Uses and Use Restrictions:
Monetary assistance is provided under this program to construct, expand, and improve State veterans' cemeteries. Cemeteries must be State-owned and operated solely for the interment of eligible veterans and their dependents and/or spouses. Construction cost means the amount found necessary to convert a tract of land to an operational cemetery.