Taking an Assessment of Lewisburg
The Community Development Board of Lewisburg has a project coming to Lewisburg in which state and municipality officials and economic development experts from Wyoming are coming to town to conduct a community assessment for future planning.
The group of seven from Wyoming will be coming to Lewisburg April 9-12 to hold listening sessions with twenty segments of the community from education and health care to small businesses and churches. The intent is to hear about the issues facing Lewisburg and the plans each segment would like to see over the next 5, 10 or 20 years.
The idea came from a USDA Rural Development Conference held in Cookeville, TN last year where Mary Randolph of Wyoming gave details of their community assessment program. The group has visited more than 120 cities in the West and one in Alabama since it began in Wyoming.
The group tours each community, holds listening sessions with segments of the population and then conducts a town hall meeting to hear from anyone in the community interested in taking part. They will then take the information they find and put together a report on their findings and offer a plan of action with accompanying resources for each community to use as a guideline for improvements.
The listening sessions will begin on April 10 following a tour of the community and will continue throughout Wednesday, April 11. More listening sessions in Lewisburg will take place on Thursday leading up to the town hall meeting event at the Lewisburg Recreation Center the evening of April 12 at 7 p.m. Everyone is invited to attend the Town Hall meeting with the group and express their hopes for a better Lewisburg.
Once the group has visited and issued their report, within six to eight weeks, the Community Development Board of Lewisburg will review the report and decide how best to incorporate their recommendations into a strategic plan of action for Lewisburg.