(Shenandoah) — Vision Shenandoah officials are pleased with the community input they’ve received on determining how best to use a significant amount of seed money from a regional foundation.
For the past 30 days, Vision Shenandoah has been garnering feedback through an online survey, along with two community meetings this past week. Through a donation from the Charles E. Lakin Foundation last year, 51 communities now have millions of dollars earmarked for improvement projects, including $16.3 million for Shenandoah. Vision Shenandoah Director Margaret Brady says the meetings and the community survey were designed to provide additional public input on the visioning process and potential projects, with the meetings last week at the Mill and Shenandoah Public Library well attended.
“We had about 40 people come to each of those meetings, so we had about 80 people that we reached in that in-person way, and it was really interesting because you never quite know who is going to come and what their questions are going to be,” said Brady. “Most of them had already done the survey, but they just had some follow up questions about how the process was going to work. We’re all figuring that out, which is exciting, because of course, Vision Shenandoah is brand new.” As of Monday morning, Brady says over 890 people have taken the online or in-person survey over the past 30 days, representing just over 18% of Shenandoah’s population. Among the highest-ranked priorities, Brady says, were attracting more families, retaining the younger population, encouraging commercial growth, developing more manufacturing and industrial growth, and expanding recreational facilities. She says building a community recreation center also received strong support from survey participants.
“Something kind of like what we see in some of the other neighboring communities like the Lied Center in Clarinda, the (YMCA) in Red Oak–Shenandoah doesn’t really have a community recreation facility and 84% of the people that answered the survey said that’s important,” Brady explained. “I was really interested that 70% of them said they or someone in their household would use it weekly. So, I think that’s great number and it tells us as a board that that might be something we need to really look at.”
Other projects receiving interest were expanding daycare services and constructing single-family homes. Brady says the next step is establishing six “dream teams” comprised of community members to focus on specific areas, including housing, daycare, recreation, tourism and events, and business development. Another focus, she adds, is grants and foundations.
“One of the Lakin Foundation’s main goals,” said Brady, “is not only to provide some money to help us but also for us to go out and find additional funding of our own. So, either local resources, other grants, or projects that are available throughout the state or federal monies to help make these things happen.”
Brady notes that the “public input” initiative was a significant priority laid out by the Lakin Foundation to help determine the best ways to use the funds.
“Just to do kind of a needs assessment so that we figure out ‘what does Shenandoah need to grow and accomplish the goal of being a larger community and keeping up with our friends across the (Missouri River) in the Omaha area,” she said. “They’ve seen great growth over the last 20 to 40 years and in Shenandoah, along with most southwest Iowa towns, we’ve been on a bit of downhill slide.”
Brady says further discussions with Lakin Foundation officials are expected to ramp up over the next few weeks. For more information on the visioning process or to find the survey, contact Brady at 712-581-9004 or executivedirector@visionshenandoah.org.
