The Aubrey Group was selected and onboarded as the Borough’s grant consultant in the fall of 2022. As a small Borough with a limited tax base, The Aubrey Group helped Buena strategize key, obtainable opportunities to pursue which would stay within the Borough’s limited scope, and secure external funding for the Borough’s listed priorities. These projects include the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs’ (NJDCA) Local Recreation Improvement and American Rescue Plan Firefighter grant programs.

The NJDCA’s American Rescue Plan Firefighter Grant helps local and regional fire departments within New Jersey provide their first responders with protective equipment. This enhances their ability to protect themselves and their communities on the fireground. In 2024, The Aubrey Group won Buena $68,000 to purchase new self-contained breathing apparatuses (SCBAs) for its fire department. SCBA packs are essential for firefighter safety, as they allow department members to breathe and move safely in burning buildings with low oxygen. At the time of this application, the Borough’s existing SCBA packs were nearing the end of their expected lifespan, which posed a serious threat to the lives of firefighters and the families they were protecting. To write this application, our team met with Buena’s Fire Chief to gather essential information about the Department’s service levels and financial needs. This included data such as the number of fire calls over the past three years and the size of the population that the Department routinely served. The Aubrey Group used this information to craft a compelling application that allowed the Borough to protect and equip its firefighters. 

The NJDCA’s Local Recreation Improvement Grant program funds projects that improve or repair municipally-owned recreational facilities, prioritizing projects that expand access to outdoor recreation for local residents. The Aubrey Group won Buena two consecutive awards for 2023 and 2024, with each awarded project updating a different section of the Borough’s Bruno Melini Park. The 2023 award ($85,000), for example, was for making needed accessibility improvements to park restrooms to ensure the park was ADA compliant, and the 2024 award ($70,000) was for repairing sports infrastructure (such as tennis and basketball courts) that had fallen into disrepair. To accomplish this, The Aubrey Group met with the Borough’s Recreation Department and Engineering consultants to determine the highest-order need for the Borough’s parks, devised a project plan for meeting that need, and drafted a budget and accompanying narrative to show the project’s feasibility and inherent value to the NJDCA. By successfully communicating the Borough’s need for valuable recreational opportunities and explaining a plan of action for supporting the community, The Aubrey Group successfully secured funding to help the Borough carry out necessary park improvements that they would not otherwise have been able to afford. 

To further improve the Borough’s recreational offerings, our team secured two consecutive years of funding for Buena’s “Arts in the Park” program through Atlantic County’s Local Arts Program. These awards help cover the costs for the recreation department to host a recurring arts in the park program, where local artists teach classes for the community.

About the Client: Buena is a small, historic community in southern New Jersey’s Atlantic County, located in the Atlantic City – Hammonton metropolitan region. The Borough is also a part of the greater Philadelphia-Reading-Camden metropolitan area, firmly situated between two large, metropolitan hubs (Atlantic City and Philadelphia) within southern New Jersey.  As of the 2020 census, Buena has a population of 4,501 residents. In the grant space, the Borough is focused on opportunities that invest in public safety services, specifically for Emergency Medical Services and Fire, and opportunities that improve the Borough’s recreational offerings.