Randy Geesaman (center) talks with Brenda Eads and Nick Miller at a community forum Monday in John Jay Center for Learning. Local residents, state officials and university representatives gathered for a little over an hour and a half to discuss potential uses of incoming dollars from the American Rescue Plan Act and Hoosier Enduring Legacy Program. (The Commercial Review/Bailey Cline)
Randy Geesaman (center) talks with Brenda Eads and Nick Miller at a community forum Monday in John Jay Center for Learning. Local residents, state officials and university representatives gathered for a little over an hour and a half to discuss potential uses of incoming dollars from the American Rescue Plan Act and Hoosier Enduring Legacy Program. (The Commercial Review/Bailey Cline)
Community members are ready to HELP.

Local residents brainstormed ways to help the community during a forum Monday at John Jay Center for Learning.

Jay County has roughly $3.9 million in American Rescue Plan Act dollars to allocate before 2024. Because it is a community chosen for the Hoosier Enduring Legacy Program (HELP) offered by Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs (OCRA), it is eligible to receive an additional $1 million.

Representatives from universities and OCRA spoke to a crowd Monday to get ideas flowing about how to improve the community with incoming federal dollars.

OCRA director Denny Spinner explained that the HELP process is intended to offer communities guidance with how to allocate their extra funds.

“We wanted to create projects beyond those that were just day-to-day projects,” explained Spinner. “What we designed this program to do is to think long term, bring the community together and think about this in the long term. What can we do to create projects and ideas that have a lasting effect on our communities?”

Spinner noted Jay County is one of three communities launching the new program.

“You guys are the cutting edge. We’re learning from you,” said Spinner. “We’re here to help you, but you’re here to help us as well.”

Christy Shauver, director of Jay County Development Corp., explained her office previously mailed postcards to local residents in an attempt to gauge interest.

“Once the postcards were received during that time, ideas came flowing in on what maybe we could use for those ARPA funds,” she said, noting response on the jayregion.com website as well as increased traffic to her office.

“There were many ideas, but some of them do not fit the parameters of ARPA,” she noted.

Shauver highlighted five main ideas suggested to her office: creating a child care facility, expanding broadband access, constructing more affordable housing (along with possibly creating a new homeless shelter offering rehabilitation programs), expanding mental health care and enhancing parks in each community.

The HELP process is split into four pathways, which address e-connectivity, community wellness, quality of life and local economies. Groups from Indiana University, Purdue University, Ball State University and Ivy Tech Community College are each assigned to a pathway committee to offer their guidance.

Brian Blackford of Ball State University directed attendees through a handful of brainstorming activities to create ideas and sort them into the correct pathway.

Ideas discussed at the meeting addressed child care, property upkeep, internet access, expanding park safety, flooding, the drug epidemic, accessibility and safety for handicapped individuals, mental health access, youth engagement, housing, public transportation, restorative justice, inclusion of new members in the community and creating a one-stop community resource center.

Pathway committees will begin meeting at the end of this month or early July and are set to put together ideas between now and the Sept. 1 deadline.

At that point, committees will meet with the core team — it is made up of local officials — to devise a final plan. (Those interested in serving on a committee are encouraged to sign up by the end of this month.)

Projects developed in the pathway committees will be implemented into a strategic investment plan.

Shauver noted the Jay County Community Engagement Plan, a document she and members of the local HELP core team created, is intended to serve as a guide for the county as it navigates how to plan and implement community engagement activities for the HELP initiative. (She said a link to the plan can be found on the jayregion.com website and noted it is regularly changing.) Other efforts to engage the community in the future include the jayregion.com website, a Jay Talk newsletter and a Jay Region Facebook page and podcast.

Shauver emphasized a need for the community to plan moving forward.

“We’re at a time where a lot of money is flowing into Jay County and we’re going to need to be going through strategic planning,” she said, referencing a saying originally coined by Benjamin Franklin. “‘If you fail to plan, you plan to fail,’ and I think that’s why it’s important that, as Jay County, we need to plan.”
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