The Imagine Ellis County Committee continues their work to strengthen area communities, from Grow Hays, Executive Director Doug Williams stops by to share with us the latest on this episode of the Post Podcast.
Transcript:
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James Bell
The Imagine Ellis County Committee continues their work to strengthen area communities, from Grow Hays, Executive Director Doug Williams stops by to share with us the latest on this episode of the Post Podcast.
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams
You know, I look back, this group was started back in late 2019, if my memory is correct, and it's a group that was started out of a committee, from the strategic doing process that the Hansen foundation sponsors, and we started this group, not having a name at that point in time, but just trying to look at what we need to be doing as a community to make ourselves more attractive and what people want to have and that kind of thing. And so it started then. And it's grown to about 25 or 30 people on this committee. And we were we started and then that little pesky pandemic came along, and kind of stalled us. And if not, for the good work of Sarah Wah singer with the chamber, we probably wouldn't exist today. But she kept things go into the pandemic, and then post pandemic, we gained a lot of momentum, and have have made a lot of progress so far as I look back.
James Bell
Yeah. And we've, as we've talked about this before, one of the biggest things on this, I think, is that communication piece, it's sharing the haze the story with others, and especially I think in with his that first go around, it was kind of geared towards the front range out in Colorado, correct? Well, it
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams
was, you know, we initially, one of the first things we did is we brought in virtually all of the business leaders in the community, the organization leaders, you know, the school district, the university, large, you know, business community, and we asked them to give five minute presentations on what their plans are and what their what they're hoping to do in the future, as well as what their challenges are. And then we had some townhall meetings and Hayes and Ellis and Victoria. And we have produced six videos, one minute videos, promoting our quality of life here and talking to people from Ellis people from Victoria, people from Hays, different demographics, a retired person, a young person, family that bought a business and moved here a family that chooses to live here with the type of jobs they have, they could live anywhere. So we're trying to cover the gambit. And then yes, we've we've engaged Eagle creative services to help us get this message out because you can have the best message in the world. But if nobody hears it, it doesn't do you any good. And so they are doing some marketing for us on the eastern slope of Colorado, we feel like that's fertile ground, to attract people to our community. And, and we've got a lot of good things going on in that area.
James Bell
Yeah, is are those efforts out in that particular area is still ongoing.
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams
They are okay, they're ongoing. And we'll be through I think next February or March, we were very fortunate to receive a sizable grant from the Schmidt Foundation, and then a partial match from the Hanson Foundation. And then the Heartland Community Foundation gave us some dollars. And so we were able to engage some of these marketing campaigns do some website development, we have a website, imagine Ellis county.com. and produce these videos that this is this has allowed us to try to get this word out and tell people about what we have to offer here.
James Bell
Very cool. I wonder if you want to talk about what's next. Like what's the organization planning? What do you guys got coming
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams
up? Well, currently, and many people I hope have received this in the mail, the docking Institute is doing a community survey for us. And they've asked a lot of questions, kind of the things I talked about earlier, you know, what, what about the community? Have you thinks positive? What do you think we have problems with, and we're hoping to get those results back sometime in October. And that will guide us in terms of some of the things we're going to continue to do. But I do imagine Ellis County at this point as a as a recruiting tool for Ellis County, you know, we we have a unique opportunity. And you and I have talked about this before with remote workers and lots and lots of Americans on the move, have the ability to move to other places live where they want to live because of remote work. And we think that we can get our fair share of those if they know about us and if we let them know what kind of community we have. And so we are very actively trying to recruit people. And we plan those, you know, the efforts and eastern slope of Colorado is one area we may focus on some others in the future. But we're gonna let some of this data that we've gotten be our guide and Thus far, we've had some interesting input, most of which we already know, in terms of the challenges, we know that housing is a problem, we know that childcare is a problem. But when you start talking about some of the wants and desires of retail and other activities, it's, it's good to have some validation from the community as to what they'd like to see.
James Bell
I don't know why you have to do a survey, Doug, you just get on Facebook, and they'll tell you, we need an olive garden, we need to target and what's the other one that I hear Dick's will get those things, they're always gonna be happy.
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams
I think that we solve all our problems. And then, you know, I obviously, retail is always everybody's view of economic development. You know, traditionally, economic development is recruiting the smokestacks, you know, big businesses employ lots of people, that that world has changed. And we're into the world of recruiting people. And we have to go after those remote workers, we have to look at retirees. They're a huge demographic that we believe we have, we check all the boxes. And then I've, I've talked, you and I have also talked about this maintenance, we need to leverage the resources our community has much in the way that southwest Kansas has leveraged their resources, they have water, they've turned that into cattle, grain production, beef, packing, dairy, cheese, the Hilmar cheese going into Dodge City, I mean, all those things come, primarily because they have a natural resource, which is water. We don't have that luxury here. But we have other resources. We've got an interstate highway that 15,000 cars a day go up and down. How do we leverage that we've got a unit amazing university. And you know that how do we leverage that? We've got a tremendous health care facility here. How do we leverage that those are the things we need to be leveraging? Those are the things we're looking at as to how we recruit using those resources in this community.
James Bell
You know, I'm curious, like, how do those imagine Ellis County committee meetings? Go? Are you guys are you talking about those things? Like how do we specifically dialed in? Are you talking more specifics like to make this happen, we need to do this
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams
little bit of both. Certainly, there's a fair amount of, you know, tactical things that we're talking about, hey, we need to get our website up to date, we need to do this with our website, we need to do this with our ads. But then also, I think we talk about the greater vision and what we're trying to accomplish. And so a little bit of both happened, we meet monthly. And, you know, we've we've had the it's been a while since we've had an actual event, the last town hall meeting we had, I believe, was in Ellis, back in the spring. And we have tabulated those results. And we've got, we've created the bubble charts, where the things it's mentioned, most is bigger, you've got all these words on a chart, and the things it's mentioned most is, is the bigger so you see the emphasis. And, you know, obviously housing, retail, those kinds of things are are on there. But we've compiled those from each meeting, as well as a county compilation. And then we're obviously going forward with this survey. And we're eager to see the results of that. And that'll give us some guidance. And, you know, I think now we're just in the in the mode where we're trying to execute on some of the ideas we've had and some of the projects we're working on.
James Bell
Yeah, you know, you mentioned that that was meeting and I was lucky enough I get to go to that meeting, and also the one in Victoria and the one inherence. And the last one in Hays. I've already seen so especially in Victoria, they have taken really taken some of those ideas that came out of that meeting and they're running with it, they're ready to go. And they've actually already accomplished one of my things
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams
they have, they are very active over there. They've got a couple of local committees looking at the obviously the old rest home is a project over there. And they're they're trying to work on some retail recruitment over there. And the the nature path through town, they've talked about and things. So that's what it takes. It takes a collaboration of a lot of people getting together for a common cause.
James Bell
Yeah, and really, and really, they came out of that meeting. One of the things they talked about was a farmers market. And Betty Johnson from the hazard Foundation was there kind of facilitate that meeting, say, you can do that, guys, don't wait, just get it done. And I believe that they're making that happen. And I just I love that because it was that idea that collaboration that meeting. And it may be never would have been thought of or never really planned out and discussed how to do it without imagining Ellis County in that that particular event.
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams
You have to start the fire. And it's my co presenter today. Sandy Jacobs, her favorite word is collaboration. But you see a lot of really positive things come from that. And so Ellis is aware of Victoria is a great example of a group of people getting together and just saying we're going to do this and it's amazing what can happen.
James Bell
You know, I'm curious if you want to talk a little bit about for all this work. I was listening to thinking like, Oh, I'm maybe I've got some ideas, and maybe I could help out. Are there ways at this point for them to have their voice heard? And I was or imagine I was kind of committee?
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams
Absolutely, we would welcome input from anybody. If somebody wants to be in the committee and be an active member of it, they give us a call, send us an email, text us whatever. We would, we would love to have more input and more feedback from people. We feel we've got a good diverse group that cover most of the bases in the community, but there's always room for additional energy and additional ideas. So if anybody wants to be involved and engaged, definitely let us know.
James Bell
Yeah, I like the idea of those diverse ideas, just because everybody's got such a different life experience. You know, we talk pretty frequently see each other at least once a week, but our life experiences are so different from what I do and what you do every day and your your background in history. We're not going to come up with the same things, I'm
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams
sure No, that's what it takes. It takes, you know, a lot of different ideas. And some of them might be crazy. I mean, we at grow Hayes, we get people who come in with, with ideas that seem pretty crazy sometimes, but then, you know, you think it through and maybe this makes sense. Maybe this is possible, what would it take? So those are the things we need to be? We need that from people.
James Bell
Cool. So let's talk before we run out of time, the specifics on this luncheon later today. Is that to open to everyone, or was that is that reservation already past.
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams
Its past, I'm sure it's an RSVP event. And so this one is not going to be available, just anyone. But it's today that the Chamber has a membership luncheon each month, and they choose a topic, and they have somebody come in and make a presentation each month. And today, Sandy and I it's our turn into barrel to, to go out and give a presentation on this Imagine Ellis County because I think people are are wondering, I haven't done the best job in terms of keeping it in the public eye. You know, we have a website, we have these videos, we have a Facebook page, we've done all this. But as you know better than anybody, you have to be consistent with your message, and you have to get it out there repeatedly. And so we recognize that and we're trying to get more of Top of Mind awareness of what we're doing.
James Bell
Sure, you know, and but there's so many things to be concerned about. You turn on the news. And there's always it seems like there's always new bad news, always something, something that's going to come up and wreck our lives. And you got to be concerned about that. But this one that this, this is a local effort that really could have an impact on lives. You know, it's easy, I think, to fall into that trap of watching the national news watching hurricane coverage right now. And the political news is always out there. But to getting involved an organization like this, or following an organization like this can really change things here in Ellis County.
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams
We can't do a lot about hurricanes. We can't do a thought about national politics, but we can make a difference locally. And so I agree with you completely. That's that's something we all need to focus on and recognize that let's let's focus our time and energy on something that we can have an impact on, and we can all have an impact on this community.
James Bell
Absolutely. Well, before we run out of time, anything else going on down to grow Hayes we want to hit on
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams
before we just we just had week three of our think like an entrepreneur class this week. And that's going well. And gosh, we the housing, the housing project Tallgrass second out there off of 22nd. I saw the Earthmovers out there yesterday for the next phase supposed to be done by year end. So we're excited about that. That's a team or lots the first phase of 36 lots are all gone. And so some things going on out there some additional housing will be sometime in the spring or summer
James Bell
starting to look like a real housing development. Before it was in the houses looked great, right but it was like a house here house. They're kind of on that hill and now it's starting to really fill in
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams
Yes, in spite of all the challenges that contractors have right now with material issues, windows, getting basements done and that kind of thing. They're they're progressing nicely
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