The Milledgeville Convention & Visitors Bureau was awarded thousands of dollars in grant money, the Georgia Department of Economic Development’s (GDEcD) Tourism Division announced Wednesday.

CVB Director Jane Sowell said the organization wrote grants on behalf of the CVB as well as the Historic Heartland collaboration and both received grants.

“We’ll use the money to place advertising in national publications promoting Milledgeville,” Sowell said. “The money will be spent on advertising and Web site enhancements for our new site.”

Sowell wrote the grant for the Historic Heartland, which was awarded a total of $20,000. CVB Projects Coordinator Heather Kennedy wrote the grant for the CVB, which garnered $12,700 for the organization.

In all, the Georgia Tourism Division accepted 82 grant applications with funding requests totaling $1.3 million. The division budget was cut from $1 million in 2009 to $500,000 in 2010. Grant applications were scored by independent judges to determine which would be awarded based on criteria including economic impact, project goals and objectives, benefit to the community, positive impact and the ability to attract and service visitors.

“The co-op marketing program is a great example of the private and public sectors working together to leverage one another’s assets,” GDEcD Assistant Commissioner for Tourism Kevin Langston said. “By combining our resources, we are able to attract additional visitors to our communities thereby generating private sector revenues along with additional sales and lodging tax revenues.”

The local dollars are the latest in what has turned into a fairly successful year for the CVB.

“The CVB partners with so many organizations, and we were awarded money through the Antebellum Trail and Georgia’s Lake Country, as well,” Sowell said.

The CVB also recently received a $5,000 grant from the Antebellum Trail and more than $3,000 from Georgia’s Lake Country.

“Baldwin County benefits from all of that,” Sowell said. “In these economic times, everybody is looking for money. We are very excited that we have been awarded all of that.”