More progress continues to be made as Greene County Development Corporation looks to bring in a key demographic to the area.

Nueva Vida en Greene County established four sub-committees that have been meeting this summer, which includes cultural integration, food, music and culture; interfaith activities, and soccer, events and facilities to attract the Latino population to the county. Steering Committee Chair Chuck Offenburger says about 50 people are involved in the four sub-committees and he shares his excitement about their plans.

“We’re going to be bringing in leaders from elsewhere in Iowa who have been involved in community changes like this to talk to us about how to make this work well and effectively. We’re not trying to reinvent anything here, but we’re going to school on the places that have been successful.”    

One of the next upcoming events is on August 30th when 16 Latino business owners will be visiting Jefferson from 11am-2pm to tour available lots in the county. GCDC Executive Director Ken Paxton told the Jefferson City Council at their meeting Tuesday night that the interested business owners are looking to expand or relocate to another area.

“They’ll be coming over from Denison (and) picking up business owners along the way through Carroll over to here. We’re kind of excited about it. Normally if you get one or two businesses looking at an opportunity that’s pretty good, we have 16. So we’ll see what happens. I’m kind of looking forward to seeing how that comes out.”  

Offenburger notes other plans includes the interfaith activities committee visiting with five pastors from Latino congregations in the Des Moines area to gain knowledge of how to include or start Latino congregations in Greene County, the food, music and culture committee has invited the Des Moines Latino band, Los Parranderos to perform at Art on the Square in September and the soccer, events and facilities committee is planning to host a soccer game with adult soccer teams in the area over Labor Day weekend. 

 

Cultural integration committee (Chair Jane Millard)

Food, Music and Culture committee (Chair Deb McGinn)

Interfaith activities committee (Pastor Issac Wrangler with Abundant Life Ministries)

Soccer, events and facilities committee (Chair Chad Schwander)