The St. Joseph Chamber of Commerce and the United Way of Greater St. Joseph are partnering to lead the community, businesses and non-profits through a visioning process to determine what residents want St. Joseph’s future to look like and what steps need to be taken to achieve that future.
The process, called Imagine St. Joseph 2040, has included more than 500 residents who have spent time analyzing trends and discussing how St. Joseph can prepare now for a better future.
“This is really a fact-driven process, we’re not just looking for opinions on what we’ll look like in 20 years,” said St. Joseph Chamber Director of Communications and Marketing Kristi Bailey. “We are looking at the facts, what’s happening around us and what we need to do to prepare ourselves for a better future.”
Throughout a series of meetings and analysis from March through May, these areas have been identified as priorities (*in alphabetical order):
- Actively engage community in a positive, proactive way
- Be proactive toward start-ups and existing businesses to stay and grow here
- “Better together” – leverage and strengthen partnerships, e.g. public/private/non-profit
- Communicate: transparency and trust
- Develop a first responder team to retain or retrain the newly unemployed
- Develop a reputation that values education and lifelong learning
- Emphasize downtown development – housing and business
- Engage community in crime prevention efforts
- Frame issues clearly with the public on critical and future issues
- Identify and develop strong new leaders
- Improve conditions for a thriving animal health industry
- Increase intergenerational mentoring
- Invest in and improve infrastructure
- Make St. Joseph a place where people want to come and stay, e.g. livability
- Poverty intervention – address root causes and best practices
- Support and encourage new and innovative ideas
St. Joseph residents are asked to help prioritize these issues by going to imaginestjoseph2040.com/getinvolved and taking a survey.
Also, residents are asked to participate in a Facebook Live event on Monday, July 16, at 6 p.m., to discuss these priorities and plans for the future with Rebecca Ryan, nationally-recognized futurist and economist who is leading the visioning process. Find Imagine St. Joseph 2040 on Facebook and RSVP to the event.
For more information on Imagine St. Joseph 2040, go to imaginestjoseph2040.com.