By JORDAN STRICKLER

Kentucky Correspondent

LEXINGTON, Ky. — The University of Kentucky's (UK) Community and Economic Development Initiative of Kentucky (CEDIK) and Purdue University are pairing up as one of four groups of organizations aimed at helping 47 rural communities.

A $1.2 million grant issued by the USDA Innovation Center, coined the Rural Economic Development Innovation (REDI), will be providing technical assistance and long-term economic development plans to rural areas.

“USDA and its partners are bringing local leaders and economic development experts together to create opportunity in some of the nation’s most economically challenged rural communities,” said Acting Assistant to the Secretary for Rural Development Joel Baxley.

CEDIK and Purdue’s Center for Regional Development (PCRD) will support eight communities and regions in the southern and north-central United States to help them build long-term economic development plans by leveraging public and private funding sources.

CEDIK will work with regions in Kentucky, Florida, Alabama, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The Purdue team will lend assistance to four sites in the Midwest including Indiana, North Dakota, Ohio, and Wisconsin.

Rural communities with populations of 50,000 or fewer people were eligible to apply for the grants. Participation in REDI is blueprinted to enable a rural community or region to create and implement an economic development plan that would include evidence-based assessments, quantifiable goals, plans to enhance the local and regional economy, and metrics to track progress.

“Our PCRD and extension team has a strong record of engagement with communities and regions across the U.S.,” said Bo Beaulieu, PCRD director and assistant director of the extension Community Development Program. “Furthermore, our current activities are closely aligned with the five focus areas noted in the Task Force report.”

One of the groups receiving direction from CEDIK and PCRD is the Mississippi and Ohio River Confluence Economic Alliance (MORCEA). The group plans to use the grant for planning assistance to support youth involvement and retention, asset promotion, infrastructure improvements, and regional economic growth.

Technical assistance will benefit residents of Alexander County, Ill.; Ballard, Carlisle, Fulton, Hickman and McCracken counties in Kentucky; and Obion County, Tenn.

“We aren't happy with the counties being the way we are, and want to see real economic growth,” explained Hannah Chretien, executive director for the Ballard Economic & Industrial Development Committee, who is helping lead the initiative for MORCEA.

“We are really looking to partner with UK and Purdue to kick-start our strategic planning for not just the city and county level, but for the multistate region. Once we have that planning done, then we can really start getting development done. We're really hopefully for what this will bring.”

In April 2017, President Trump established the Interagency Task Force on Agriculture and Rural Prosperity to identify legislative, regulatory, and policy changes that could promote agriculture and prosperity in rural communities.

“(REDI) will entail providing a fair amount of data access describing their current situation, walking them through strategic planning, trying to create formal partnerships and collaborations where they do not presently exist, helping them identify funding sources, as well as implementing something out of the plan that can get them moving in a forward trajectory,” said Alison Davis, CEDIK’s executive director and a professor in the UK Department of Agricultural Economics.

“I really like working in our far-west counties, so I’m excited that they put forward a good application and were selected.”

The partner groups are CEDIK/PCRD, the National Assoc. of Counties Research Foundation, the Rural Community Assistance Partnership, and McClure Engineering Co.