News
"Let's Stay Together"
5/24/2010
Author: Doug Leduc
Published by: Ft. Wayne Business Weekly
The groups that are working to make Noble County a better and more prosperous place to live have become better connected through a state-supported initiative launched there last year.
HomeTown Competitiveness was a pilot program used by the Indiana Office of Rural and Community Affairs to help rural areas reverse trends threatening their growth. It was patterned after a Nebraska program designed to revitalize small towns losing employment, investment and their younger work force.
With an unemployment rate of 16.8 percent and an average per-capita income 28 percent below the national average, many Noble County leaders welcomed a program that could help pull people together to work toward a better future.
They modified the program to better meet Noble County needs and renamed it Thrive.
"We went into HomeTown Competitiveness with a little different outlook," said Kimberly Schroeder, a Dekko Foundation program officer and Thrive coordinator.
"In Noble County, we have a lot of resources, so we're not resource-poor. But we were sort of fragmented and not working together."
"The last year has been spent putting together networks," she said. "Lots of great things are happening in our communities. I'm not sure I can tag them with the Thrive tag, but I hope we have created an environment for them to happen."
The state program recommended building a future on four pillars: community reinvestment; young work-force retention; and leadership and entrepreneurship development.
Thrive added a cultural pillar to the program when it was starting last year because community leaders participating in it considered the county's way of life "just as important as our prosperity," Schroeder had said at the time.
Committees were formed to direct volunteer efforts for each pillar, and a coordinating committee was formed that included the leadership from each pillar committee.
Through committee meetings and personal connections established among members of the committees, "all these people are talking to one another, so they all know what's going on and what role each plays," Schroeder said.
It makes it easier to quickly marshal resources and support for important projects as they arise. In the case of a recent Activate Noble County project, it was as simple as encouraging as many people as possible to cast a vote at a Web site, she said.
Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream had announced it would celebrate the launch of its Edy's Antioxidant Fruit Bars flavors by planting dozens of public fruit tree orchards in deserving communities across the country, to help make them greener and healthier.
Consumers were invited to vote for the most deserving locations starting March 15 at www.communitiestakeroot.com, and eligible neighborhoods attracting the most votes would receive a fruit tree orchard along with a groundbreaking party to celebrate the planting.
The frozen dessert company said five winning neighborhoods would be announced each month from April through August. Activate Noble County organized a Kendallville campaign to win one of the orchards, and with Thrive support, came up with enough votes.
The Fruit Tree Planting Foundation, a nonprofit international charity working with Dreyer's, will help plant up to 30 organic apple and pear trees on park district property across from South Side Elementary School.
Mark Demchak, the executive director of the Cole Center YMCA in Kendallville, heads Activate Noble County along with Cathy Byrd, vice president of patient services at Parkview Noble Hospital.
The orchard is needed, Demchak said, because food pantries don't "always have the best choices as far as nutrition goes in the food that's being donated. They want to cook healthier things, but only cook what comes in the door."
Maintaining and harvesting the trees will require quite a bit of care, but "it's not going to be a problem; lots of groups will help us with that," Demchak said.
He did not know which pillar would best match the orchard or other Activate Noble County projects, but said "we expect to find a place under the Thrive umbrella."
Examples of efforts Thrive is supporting to increase business in the county include development of an entrepreneurship program through the Noble County Economic Development Corp. and a "Farm to Fork" program through the Noble County Convention and Visitors Bureau.
The bureau announced last month it was seeking farmers in the county to supply area restaurants and provide an agritourism experience that would education visitors about agricultural products and production practices.
And "because of Thrive, our local economic development corporation is taking a look at entrepreneurship," Schroeder said. "Before, it was all industry."
An assessment is under way to determine "what kind of tools we already have available and what other things we may need to help entrepreneurs in Noble County succeed and thrive," said Rick Sherck, executive director of the county's EDC.
The EDC may coordinate an entrepreneurship summit, with presentations covering the most crucial steps involved in starting a business, and it may look for ways to match entrepreneurs with mentors who have had success starting and running a business.
"We don't have to re-create the wheel," Sherck said. "We have a lot of resources available for entrepreneurship development and just have to make people aware of it."
The development of entrepreneurship is important to the county's economy because homegrown businesses are more likely to keep their operations in it, he said.
Some smaller, younger, more entrepreneurial companies can do better in a recession, he added, because they can respond to changes in the economy more quickly than some larger companies.
"Noble County was hard hit by unemployment - it was second in the state for unemployment for many months," Sherck said. "And while that has had a negative effect on the county as a whole, those people who are engaged in working on Thrive believe this initiative will help us in the future."
The county already has "a number of entrepreneurial companies that have found a way to keep churning during these hard times," he said.
With more of those kinds of companies, Sherck said, "the next time we have an economic downturn, we'll be better positioned." Back to Top