By Jessica Coates

jessica.coates@salisburypost.com

SALISBURY – The portion of the Salisbury Greenway connecting Kelsey Scott Park to Jake Alexander Boulevard is on track to be completed, thanks to a grant from the Carolina Thread Trail.

Salisbury was one of eight municipalities in North and South Carolina that received a grant from the Carolina Thread Trail this quarter.

Carolina Thread Trail’s ultimate goal is to connect 15 counties in North and South Carolina via trails and greenways.

The organization’s governing board awards grants every three months and usually receives between seven and 13 applications per quarter, according to Carolina Thread Trail Community Coordinator Bret Baronak.

“They’re reviewed by staff and we have a grant review subcommittee review applications (and decide) whether we think it’s a quality project and whether it’s consistent,” Baronak said.

Baronak said that Salisbury received the largest grant for this cycle — $100,000.
He said the largest grant they could give to one project during one cycle is $150,000.

Baronak said that the money the Thread Trail gives is not meant to pay for a city’s entire greenway project. Instead, he said that the grants are meant to be “catalytic” and to leverage funding from other sources.

“If the Thread Trail steps up and says, ‘We’ll give you X amount of dollars,’ we hope they say, ‘Hey, if you provide $40,000 we can provide $80,000,’ ” he said.

Baronak said that supplying catalytic grants is one of the Thread Trail’s primary missions. Their other goals are to provide education and technical resources to promote trail building and to provide a vision for a system of connected trails.

The portion of the greenway that the grant will go toward is three-quarters of a mile long and will eventually connect with the existing greenway at Catawba College.

Contact reporter Jessica Coates at 704-797-4222.