A local business recently made a financial contribution toward a recreational project that also received a grant.

According to Jefferson Telecom, a combined $9,000 was given by Jefferson Telecom with a Ripple Effect Grant from Aureon toward a repaving project on the Raccoon River Valley Trail. Jefferson Telecom General Manager Jamie Daubendiek says the original portion of the trail in Greene County is almost 30 years old and he feels it needs to be replaced with new concrete, just like the rest of the trail through the county that is part of one of the longest recreational trails in the country, at 89 miles and 72 miles being in a continuous loop. 

Daubendiek states that the $9,000 is being used to pay for the cost of an economic impact study that the Iowa Bicycle Coalition produced that included the City of Jefferson as a case study. He hopes that with the data that is in the study will help with a situation that this trail project presents in terms of grants, due to almost all of the grant opportunities for a replacement of a portion of a recreational trail does not exist.

“And that’s kind of our hang up here, where it’s probably going to create some different funding sources, unique funding sources, in order to be able to probably completely rip out, and got to regrade, and repave, and hopefully last for 50 more years. But there’s a lot of people that care about it and want to see it happen.”    

Daubendiek says the portion of the trail that is being targeted is from Winklemen Switch in Greene County to Herndon and then into Guthrie County. The estimated cost for the project is $5 million.