Network Expansion
Weekly Update 11/5/2023 to 11/11/2023 #198
Expanding the network for the future of our community was one of my goals this week. Before that though, let me share some of my week serving as mayor of the best small town in America.
Thank you to our veterans for their service and congratulations to the Seymour Intermediate School for a successful Veterans Day program. With over 1000 students and guests in attendance, the new gymnasium was packed. The 6th-grade choir did a wonderful job, and the kids seemed to be engaged as the speakers presented. Thank you to everyone involved for making this public event a success.
Welcome to Vincennes University as we cut the ribbon on their new learning lab at the Jackson County Learning Center on Dupont Drive. This project brought several different groups together to happen. Besides the two already mentioned, the following also helped to make this happen: the State of Indiana via the Indiana Economic Development Corporation, Seymour Redevelopment Commission, Jackson County Education Coalition, Community Foundation of Jackson County, Jackson County Industrial Development Corporation, City of Seymour, Aisin, Cummins, and Valeo. This project was part of the READI 1.0 round of funding and was identified as part of our recently completed Brookings Study of the Burkart Opportunity Zone. Seymour area industry now has a program to help teach industrial maintenance right here at home and a chance to help their employees advance in their companies. Good work to everyone involved.
As I stated earlier, one of my goals this week was to expand Seymour's networking. I was able to accomplish this as I spoke at the Accelerating City Equity Mayors Roundtable in Atlanta, Georgia. I was one of four speakers at this inaugural event and was able to share the story of Seymour and some troubles we face with representatives from thirteen cites in six different countries from around the world. As speakers, we were asked to share our story and a problem we would like the group's help working on. I chose to share our rich history from being founded over 170 years ago by mostly German immigrants and having just celebrated our 50th Oktoberfest. From there, I shared how around 40 years ago we grew more diverse with the addition of Aisin and the Japanese community. Twenty years later, we saw an increase in the Mexican population, and now, we are seeing the Haitian and Guataleman communities grow. Since our beginning, I can’t help but think it is the chance for a better life that has helped us keep growing over the years. After sharing about our recent work with the Brookings Institute, I asked the question of how do you bring everyone to the table so that we can all grow together? How do we help new residents understand what is needed when opening a business or something as simple as paying the sewer bill? How do we get everyone together so we can identify the needs of the community and increase growth opportunities for our area workers such as Industrial Maintenance training? While I could easily go through the thirteen items in the agenda and how they connect us more than they divide us, I will leave you to read them for yourself by downloading the study from the City of Seymour website: Seymourin.org; it is located on the right column. As we sat down for lunch at the event, it was interesting to learn that the representative from Switzerland brought up my same question before I even had a chance to share it in my presentation. Thank you to the International Society for Urban Health for giving me a chance to grow Semour’s network to even more corners of the world, and I will leave you with the words of speaker Patrin Watanatada and hope that they get you thinking like they did me about what are we leaving for our future generations, “We need to be good ancestors.”