The National Banana Pudding Festival is in line to receive a $10,000 grant from the county Legislative Body.
Members of the county Budget Committee — made up entirely and only of all the county’s commissioners — voted 13-0 to recommend the contribution to the county commission at its September 23 meeting.
Festival Chairman Dave Reed told the panel last Monday that the funding should come from the county’s Hotel Motel tax revenue; commissioners agreed.
The Banana Pudding Festival is the largest single entertainment event in Hickman County, drawing as many as 10,000 people to its two-day event, which arrives here again on October 5.
As recommended, the grant would come from the county’s unbudgeted reserves.
Commissioners also heard from Davis House Child Advocacy Center, for which a $10,000 contribution was approved this summer.
That grant has been suspended until completion of a formal split Davis House, which now serves the 21st Judicial District, and the new entity — as yet unnamed — which would serve the three counties of the 32nd Judicial District, which was formed in 2022.
Davis House will continue to provide interviews of juvenile victims of crime until that process is complete, director Carolyn Evans said. The split is expected at the end of 2024.
Discussion last Monday indicated that commissioners will reconsider funding when the new entity has acquired a federal tax exemption as a nonprofit organization.
