The Community Foundation of Central Georgia on Wednesday awarded 12 grants totaling nearly $250,000 as part of the Knight Neighborhood Challenge, a program to fund area residents’ ideas for strengthening a sense of place in Macon’s College Hill Corridor.

The goal of the Knight Neighborhood Challenge is to invest in ideas to restore the land use and social fabric of the College Hill neighborhood.

The 12 grants awarded Wednesday, which add up to $249,394, ranged from $450 to $85,000 and include entertainment, environmental and education projects.

Nearly $15,000 went to the all-volunteer group Friends of Tattnall Square Park for its idea to create a gathering garden and serpentine wall there.

The Macon Music Ambassadors entertainment project received $51,116, and $85,000 will go for code enforcement technology for the city of Macon.

Since the Knight Neighborhood Challenge’s inception, the Community Foundation of Central Georgia, which administers the grants, has awarded $1.3 million for 88 grants to improve the College Hill Corridor.

Other grants include: a Beall’s Hill community garden pavilion and rain collection system ($34,700); the Roving Listener program ($6,500); Rebuilding Macon’s “Making a Difference in the Corridor” project ($25,000); and a project to encourage student-and-family activities ($15,000) in Mercer Village.

“It’s an opportunity for individuals and organizations ... to have an idea and have a way to fund it,” said Julia Wood, director of donor services for the Community Foundation. “Anyone can apply who has an idea.”

The InTown Macon Neighborhood Association won a $5,800 grant for its Coleman Hill reclamation project, a landscaping spruce-up that will rely heavily on volunteer muscle.

“I’m hoping it’ll be a revival of Coleman Hill,” said Bridget Wright, past president of the neighborhood association. “The goal is to clean it up and open it up.”