Chamber Eyes Ingredients for Thriving Community

By KEVIN KOELLING, Managing Editor
TELL CITY - The board of directors for the Perry County Chamber of Commerce is exploring the opportunities available through an Indiana Home Town Competitiveness Program, chamber Executive Director Cheri Taylor said Aug. 20.

Addressing county-council members as they heard representatives of various county offices explain budget needs for next year, Taylor said the program, which is administered by the state's Office of Community and Rural Affairs, will be explained at a meeting scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m. Sept. 3 at the Schergens Center in Tell City.

The program "looks at four ... pillars - entrepreneurship, wealth transfer, youth and leadership - and it helps you build on those four," Taylor said. Pilot studies have shown that if those pillars are strong in a community, she added, "then you have a thriving community."

"The Indiana Hometown Competitiveness Program was developed to help communities such as ours reverse the population decline and 'brain drain' that has been experienced," said Missy Noble, chamber president, in an Aug. 20 letter to members and elected officials. "The state believes that Indiana rural communities can use this program to accomplish their economic- and community-development goals."

The chamber will look into using the program in what Taylor called an effort very similar "to the visioning process we did back in (20)04 and finished up in '05." New faces in the community and the chamber office "have popped up, so we really need to put some initiatives in front of people to start working on that (help prepare Perry County) for the next century. So we're going to at least look at this, to see what interest is out there."

"This isn't going to cost the chamber or the council any money," Taylor continued, "it's all going to be done through private donations." Those will total a required $7,500, she added, "and then the state does the rest." Taylor told the council members she just wanted to make them aware the chamber is looking into the opportunity.

In addition to the state's rural-affairs office, other organizations contributing to the program include Ball State and Purdue universities, the University of Southern Indiana, Indiana Grantmakers Alliance, Indiana Rural Development Council and United States Department of Agriculture.

"All of these partners have seen the proven record of this program helping smaller and more-rural communities build significantly stronger and more sustainable development," Noble said in the letter. "Each partner has committed various resources to help communities initiate, implement and sustain the activities associated with the four-pillar process."