Many of you will recall that a little over a year ago, the Build a Better Grinnell project surveyed community members in an effort to better understand some of the key issues community members believe to be most critical to the Grinnell community. Seven top responses were identified, and while there will be more information coming soon about each of those, one of the key issues Grinnellians noted was improving drinking water quality. At the time of the information gathering and its subsequent release, the City was already in the process of designing a new water treatment plant to help address the issue.
Much progress has been made since that time, and as you can imagine, projects like these take a significant amount of legwork to structure, design and develop - not to mention time and money. The city just recently completed the 95% design meeting with project developers, indicating components of the project will soon be put to bid and visible progress will soon be made. You can read more about the status of all the water improvement projects in a recent update on the city's website HERE.
The city was also recently notified they are the recipient of a federal grant through the Community Project Funding process, secured by Congresswoman Hinson, to help fund the efforts. This earmark will provide $3M towards the scope of the project. Additionally, the City has applied for state revolving funds (SRF) and are exploring other funding options that could also be used toward the project's completion.
I encourage community members to follow along with the Grinnell Herald Register as they provide regular and in-depth updates on this important community project. And in case you missed it, the Chamber Ambassadors visited the City of Grinnell's Water Treatment Plant over spring break (thus the smaller group photo!) to learn more about the progress being made on these efforts to address the water system(s) in the community. You can read more about that visit and find some of the photos HERE.
Our team had the pleasure of attending Grinnell High School's Reverse Career Fair this week. It was an opportunity for us and our business community to visit with the Career and Technical Education students and see what they've been learning in class and how these skills can help them in a future internship or career. There were over 30 different classes represented by 50+ students from all four grades.
From business to ag science, culinary to manufacturing, robotics to theater and more, each student we talked with shared their successes and challenges in what they've learned this school year. Our team was impressed by the student's communication skills and their passion for sharing what they learned, and we even learned a thing or two! Some key skills they've developed include; project management, problem solving, teamwork, communication, time management, public speaking and so much more. The CTE program plans to do this again next year and we strongly encourage anyone interested to attend.
Hats off to Amy Skouson, Ashley Wolfe, Jerry Hulsing, Sam Watts and the rest of the GHS faculty and staff for their hard work in preparing Grinnell students for the future. We appreciate your dedication and thank you for the opportunity to visit with students. And to all the students that participated, thank you for sharing your passion and experiences with us. We can't wait to see what you do next!
We strongly believe in regional collaboration and we also believe in tapping into resources outside of our own community, when possible. We were proud to host team members of the Iowa Economic Development Authority/Iowa Finance Authority in Grinnell yesterday. Joined by Director Debi Durham and Main Street Director, Michael Wagler for a morning visit, we spent a quick visit touring them through the community. We used the opportunity to not only thank them for the investments the State of Iowa has had in recent projects in Grinnell, but to also ask for continued support and assistance for future projects.
The department oversees an incredible number of programs and initiatives including economic development, housing, tourism, downtown resource center and several others. We were able to share some progress of their most recent financial commitments to Grinnell in action. A few of those included the completion of the second round downtown facade project, the Grinnell Historical Museum - which was recently awarded a $200,000 CAT grant, several housing projects including the now-completed Reserves at South Lake (nearest WalMart), a downtown building rehabilitation project for the School of Music, and concluded with a visit to the UnityPoint Health - Grinnell Regional Medical Center's OB department who was recently awarded $600,000 through a CDBG program.
Our office and many of our partners are constantly looking into opportunities - whether grants or loans - that may help move projects and businesses forward in our community, and we feel fortunate to have partners at IEDA who are willing to engage and assist us along the way. We can't wait to have them visit again soon as we more projects come to fruition!
