Manchester and Van Buren County have been selected by the new Iowa Rural Vitality Coalition as the two areas for a pilot program to improve the health and vitality of residents.
Manchester Rural Vitality lead Sarah Maurer says this is a fantastic opportunity for Manchester to enhance the community and quality of life for its residents. “And see what Manchester needs, see the needs of Manchester, We all might think what we know we need, but maybe that’s not really what we need,” Maurer says. “And so they’re going to help us determine that and come up with a plan and execute it and so we’re really excited to get started.”
Maurer says they’re looking for people in eight categories – intellectual, human, social, cultural, political, physical, natural and financial – who would like to be involved with the process for Manchester. “These people will be the representation from our community and have a voice in the process,” she says. “Our goal is to engage more people from within our community not necessarily always the same people that have been involved in the past.”
She says they will be getting more information soon. )”We’re gonna have a meeting coming up and the group will explain. The Iowa Rural Vitality Coalition will explain what our next steps are and how they foresee our process to go and what we expect to happen,” Maurer says. The program will focus on building and refining a process that can be replicated to benefit other rural communities throughout Iowa.
(By Janelle Tucker, KMCH, Manchester)