Knox County is getting a portion of $15 million in READI 2.0 grants.

The announcement was was made Thursday at a special session of the Indiana Economic Development Corporation hosted by Governor Eric Holcomb,

READI is the Regional Economic Acceleration Development Initiative.

It’s an Indiana program dedicating $500 million in strategic investments into areas that will advance quality of life, place and quality of opportunity.

The state is divided up into regions made up of several counties. Each region works to create planning strategies as part of the application process.

Knox County is in the Indiana First Region which also includes the counties of Pike, Spencer, Perry and Harrison. The region was awarded $15 million total.

The Chairman of the Indiana First Region is Chris Pfaff who is the CEO of Knox County Indiana Economic Development.

We talked with him last month when after the region applied for funding and he explained what the application required and how the funds, which do require a dollar for dollar local match, would be used. ..

Looking at the neighboring regions READI awards;

•  Indiana Uplands, was awarded $30 million, that includes the counties of Brown, Crawford, Daviess, Dubois, Greene, Lawrence, Martin, Monroe, Orange, Owen

• The Southwest Region  got $45 million, and that region is Gibson, Posey, Vanderburgh and Warrick Counties.

• Wabash River, was awarded $10 million, counties in that region are Clay, Parke, Sullivan, Vermillion, Vigo Counties.