Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) announced on Thursday that the U.S. Department of Justice has selected Lewiston’s Maine Resiliency Center to receive an $8,526,240 grant to aid in their work for the victims of the October 25 Lewiston shooting.
“The Lewiston shooting robbed the lives of 18 innocent people and shook the community and our entire state to its core. A year and half later, others injured are still recovering from that horrific day. As the community works to rebuild, the Maine Resiliency Center remains a critical part of this recovery process. I am thankful this federal funding will go toward supporting these efforts,” said Senator Collins in a press release.
Collins lobbied Attorney General Pam Bondi to assign funds from the DOJ’s Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) to the Resiliency Center. The funding will be supported through the OVC’s Antiterrorism and Emergency Assistance Program (AEAP).
The Lewiston-based Community Concepts nonprofit founded the Resiliency Center in response to the October 2023 Lewiston shooting, in which Robert Card murdered 18 people.
The Center provides a variety of support events and services for anyone affected by the shooting, such as “trauma-informed yoga,” and classes on American sign language.
According to Community Concepts’ most recent Form 990 tax filing, the nonprofit received $25.3 million in federal funding in 2022.
It remains unclear how exactly the taxpayer funding will be used to benefit victims of the Lewiston shooting. Previously, nearly $2 million worth of donations given to the victims of the shooting were assigned to a variety of non-profits, many of which appeared to support far-left policies and had little to do with helping shooting victims.
