June 17, 2021 | Community Spotlight: USDA's Rural Innovation Placemaking Challenge Accepted by Pennsylvania Downtown Center | By: Pennsylvania Downtown Center |
Downtown New Castle, Pennsylvania. Photo credit: Jon Dawson (license)
The Rural Innovation Placemaking Challenge from USDA is currently accepting applications through July 26, 2021. This Challenge is designed to empower rural communities to develop actionable strategies to capitalize on community assets through the creation of quality public spaces that contribute to the community’s social, physical, and economic well-being. In 2020, Pennsylvania Downtown Center (PDC), the state’s Main Street Coordinating Program, was a recipient of this grant program. A year after receiving this funding, we connected with PDC to learn more about their work supported by the Rural Innovation Placemaking Challenge and their experience with the program overall.
PDC was fortunate to be one of only five organizations selected nationwide for the newly-created USDA Rural Development Rural Innovation Placemaking Challenge grants in the fall of 2020. PDC is using their $140,000 grant to provide mini-grants and placemaking services to support downtown revitalization in five separate community revitalization initiatives throughout Pennsylvania. Funds are being used to develop community assessments, revise and refresh vision statements, initiate strategic action plans, create annual work plans, and provide supportive technical assistance through September 2022.
“We are thrilled to be partnering with USDA Rural Development and honored to be one of only five selected programs,” said Julie Fitzpatrick, PDC’s Executive Director. “We look forward to using this new and exciting initiative to bring more attention to Pennsylvania’s rural communities by helping to increase local capacity and by growing and enhancing existing implementation and funding partners.”
Fitzpatrick sees this as an opportunity to build on other recent investments—such as the Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh Blueprint Communities program—to assist the communities in their next phase of revitalization.
“The USDA Rural Innovation Placemaking Challenge grant is an ideal complement to many Main Street initiatives. Whether you’re a community just beginning your revitalization efforts or building off years of success and determining the next phase of your strategy, PDC would certainly encourage other state or regional coordinators to apply to USDA for this second round,” said Fitzpatrick.
Big Plans for Pennsylvania’s Rural Communities
To be innovative, local placemaking efforts need to understand and adapt to the challenges of current issues. Placemaking is a process that connects vision, strategy, implementation, and funding into a unified effort that will improve the overall environment and quality of life in a community. To be sustainable, placemaking needs to provide local organizations with the knowledge and skills to understand, to adapt, and to change outdated perceptions and attitudes. PDC intends for the Rural Innovation Placemaking Challenge effort to help communities do just that: Innovate-Succeed-Sustain.
For the last few months, PDC has been working to implement the Rural Innovation Placemaking Challenge effort to help communities innovate, succeed, and sustain. Their targeted outcomes include improved community perceptions, increased organizational capacity, better informed organizations, increased volunteerism, and overall increased buy-in to the communities’ revitalization efforts. They are working with several local revitalization initiatives, including:
- New Visions in New Castle, Pennsylvania
- Clarion Blueprint Community, Inc. in Clarion, Pennsylvania
- Reynoldsville Community Association in Reynoldsville, Pennsylvania
- The Allegheny-Clarion Valley Blueprint Community, comprised of Emlenton, Foxburg, and the City of Parker, Pennsylvania
- The Juniata River Blueprint Communities, comprised of Mount Union, Mapleton, and Shirley Township, Pennsylvania
Within these communities, PDC is working with the local revitalization initiatives to assess and encourage the expansion of existing local, regional, statewide, and national public, private, nonprofit, and philanthropic partnerships. Newly identified partners will be encouraged to participate in diversity, equity, and inclusion practices so that organizational representation better matches the socioeconomic profile of the communities they serve.
We will drop back in on Pennsylvania Downtown Center later this year to see how their revitalization plans have come to life. In the meantime, learn more about USDA’s Rural Innovation Placemaking Challenge and submit an application to the program here.
About the Author
Founded in 1987, the mission of Pennsylvania Downtown Center is to build and support the capacity of local nonprofit organizations, municipalities, and individuals to enhance the overall well-being and sustainability of Pennsylvania’s core communities. PDC accomplishes this mission by engaging and educating local community leaders and volunteers, to advance the sense of place, quality of life and economic vitality of the Commonwealth's downtowns, traditional neighborhood business districts and nearby residential areas. For more information about designated Main Street or Elm Street programs or nationally accredited communities, contact Maria Wherley at (717) 870-9334 or email here.