Generation 5 Communities Accepted Into Hometown Collaboration Initiative
The Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs (OCRA) announced on May 4, 2017 that the Towns of Albion and Cumberland, Cities of Angola and Washington, and Brown County have been welcomed into the Indiana Hometown Collaboration Initiative (HCI). To date, nineteen communities across the State of Indiana have joined this community capacity-building initiative. “We are so pleased by the five new sites that are now joining the HCI. All of them demonstrated during the site visits by the state HCI team that they are serious about taking their hometowns to new heights of excellence,” said Bo Beaulieu, Purdue Center for Regional Development Director and Extension Community Development Program Assistant Director. “Equally important is the commitment they made to ensure that a diversity of local residents would be recruited to take active roles in all phases of the initiative.”
This initiative is toward energizing self-identified communities of 25,000 or fewer people who aim to develop a new generation of local leaders; promote the launch, survival and growth of small businesses and entrepreneurs; or invest in place through community design, public space developments, local foods, or other quality of life initiatives.
The Purdue Center for Regional Development is partnered with Ball State’s Indiana Community Institute and OCRA to implement this community capacity building initiative. Also collaborating in as an HCI initiative partner is Ball State University’s Indiana Communities Institute.
