(Shenandoah) — Efforts to gather feedback on a direction for Shenandoah continue.
About 30 people attended the first of two Vision Shenandoah community meetings at the Mill Tuesday night. Vision Shenandoah board members are holding the meetings to solicit comments or ideas on possible projects for money allotted by the Charles E. Lakin Foundation. Shenandoah received $16.35 million in seed money for ventures helping the community grow and improve. Each community project must be approved by the Lakin Foundation. But, Vision Shenandoah Executive Director Margaret Brady says Shenandoah is not in competition with the other communities involved in the visioning effort.
“The way this works is by population,” said Brady. “The towns had an allocation of money. Ours is a little over $16 million. But, they’re not just going to hand it out to us. They want us to come up with a good project that will help make this town grow.”
One of the questions asked during the one-hour meeting was the response to Vision Shenandoah’s survey available through a link on the organization’s Facebook page. Brady says about 395 online surveys were returned. Brady says about 75% of those responding indicated strong support for a community recreation center.
“I was really happy with the positive response from the people,” said Brady. “There were very few things that they thought we should just ignore. Definitely, the rec center rose above the others. Most people thought they wanted that, and would use it on a weekly basis–I was really happy with that. Also, housing and daycare. I asked for specifics on those some of those–what would like to see in a rec center, what would they like to see with daycare. People took the time to give me some really good feedback. I think it shows that they were not only filling it out, but they were engaged in the process.”
Another attendee voiced concerns about the lack of involvement from young people in the visioning process, and the need to entice more younger residents to locate in Shenandoah. Brady says it’s something the Vision Shenandoah board intends to address.
“When we go to the next phase, we’re putting together what we would call the ‘dream teams,'” she said. “I have specifically worked with the board to think of some younger people that could be part of the visioning process. On each one of those committees, we’re going to have people who have some past knowledge, some current knowledge and some of those who are just getting involved in being leaders in the community.
“One of our goals is to grow leadership out of this whole process. We’ll see that those people get more engaged, and figure out that, oh, wow, there’s a really good role for me here in the future of Shenandoah,” Brady added.
Vision Shenandoah holds the second community meeting Thursday from 1-to-2 p.m. at Shenandoah Public Library’s auditorium.
