Tell City nonprofit gets Dollar General literacy grants in record funding round

Tell City’s Lincoln Hills Development Corporation was listed for $10,000 and $3,000 in Dollar General Literacy Foundation grants, putting a combined $13,000 into Perry County from a round that also reached other Tri-State communities.

Dollar General announced nearly $16 million in one-day literacy grants on May 8, 2026, its largest single-day total to date. The money went to more than 1,400 schools, libraries and nonprofit organizations and is expected to reach about 1.5 million people across the 48 states where Dollar General operates. The foundation said the total topped its previous one-day record of more than $13.2 million set in May 2025.

For Perry County, the local name on the list was Lincoln Hills Development Corporation, the designated Community Action Agency for Crawford, Perry and Spencer counties. Lincoln Hills lists its Tell City office at 302 Main Street, Tell City, IN 47586. The group’s presence on the grant list matters because literacy dollars often reach rural counties through agencies already working with families, adults and school-age children, instead of sitting in state offices or large systems far from the people who need help.

Dollar General says its literacy grants can support adult education instruction, GED or high school equivalency preparation and English language acquisition through its adult literacy program. Its family literacy and summer reading grants are aimed at helping parents and children learn together and keeping pre-K through 12th-grade students reading during the months outside the classroom. The foundation also offers youth literacy grants and Beyond Words disaster relief for school libraries. Eligible organizations must generally be within 15 miles of a Dollar General store or distribution center.

The Perry County award also sat within a wider regional spread that included recipients in Madisonville, Owensboro, Evansville and Fairfield, showing the foundation’s reach into local institutions rather than just larger city systems. Dollar General said it has awarded more than $292 million since 1993 and helped more than 25 million people. The foundation’s current grant cycle lists January 2027 application windows for both family literacy and summer reading support, giving local organizations a path to seek more money as they build out tutoring, reading and adult-learning services in the months ahead.