Eligible fire departments and ambulance services can seek funding
 Applications are now being accepted for the Office of the State Fire Marshal’s Small Equipment Grant Program, which will award $3.3 million worth of grants to eligible fire departments/fire protection districts and not-for-profit ambulance services.
All interested departments should send their applications no later than Jan. 29, 2021.
Applicants can also apply for funding for personal infection-control items such as masks, gowns and gloves during this application cycle, in addition to seeking funding for firefighting personal protective equipment and other small equipment.
More information and the grant application can be found at https://www2.illinois.gov/sites/sfm/Iam/FireDepartment/Grants-and-Loans/Pages/default.aspx?fbclid=IwAR1ayvAPuyTGbUA_cl_oQaZtQ3HHY01U00rWloCcwlSAGDOpWZv0DJuF0XY
Giving thanks!
SOS Driver Services facilities closed until Dec. 7
Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White is reminding the public that Driver Services facilities statewide will be closed for in-person transactions until Dec. 7, due to the worsening COVID-19 pandemic. White is encouraging the public to take advantage of online services.
White has expanded online renewals for driver’s licenses and ID cards. Not everyone qualifies, particularly those who are required to pass a written or road test. For more information on determining whether an individual qualifies for online renewal, visit https://www.cyberdriveillinois.com/
Gettysburg Remembrance Day
President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address at the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on Nov. 19, 1863, four and a half months after the Union armies prevailed over Confederate armies at the Battle of Gettysburg.
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
—Abraham Lincoln
Pritzker announces new statewide COVID-19 restrictions
 Beginning Nov. 20, retail spaces in Illinois will face new capacity limits, and museums and casinos will be closed, under a number of new mitigation measures announced recently by Gov. J.B. Pritzker in the wake of sharp increases in reported COVID-19 cases.
Mitigations will affect:
· Retail (including service counters)
· Personal care service
· Health and fitness centers
· Hotels
· Manufacturing
· Bars and restaurants
· Meetings, social events and gatherings (including weddings, potlucks, etc.)
· Office
· Organized group recreational activities (sports, indoor sports and activity facilities, etc.)
· Indoor recreation, theaters, cultural institutions (e.g. casinos, bowling, arcades, movie theaters, museums, and zoos).
More information is available at https://coronavirus.illinois.gov/s/restore-illinois-mitigation-plan
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