Jeni Meyer, who works with the Mountain Association, recently helped acquire a grant for Floyd County through the Recreation Economy for Rural Communities program.
“We do community and economic development; I work closely with Elkhorn Park in Minnie, and we’ve been wanting to get more funding for them and help them grow and make repairs,” Meyer said. “Through doing that, I’ve been able to get involved with stuff through the county.”
Meyer said she participated in a program called Building Resilient Economies in Coal Communities, which led to the process of filling out the grant application.
“It helps create technical assistance planning to apply for other grants, and through those meetings and that process, we discussed how to get young people to stay in Floyd County and attract people too,” she said. “We started focusing on recreational economies and natural assets we want to capitalize on.”
This, in turn, led to the rural community grant.
“This program is through the EPA, and through it, they help facilitate a workshop and planning for recreation specifically,” Meyer said. “They help connect you with agencies and funding.”
Meyer said the biggest piece of the grant is community involvement, and she said community members will get the chance to have their voices heard during an upcoming community meeting.
“We’ve been talking about our assets and what people helping with this program want to see,” she said. “On the evening of April 23, we’re having a community meeting to hear ideas the community has to make more recreation opportunities in Floyd County. We want people to come and express where they see gaps, or what they want to see in the future regarding parks, trails, recreation or anything along those lines. It’s open to the community, and people from the EPA, planning committee, and more will be doing a tour of the area beforehand.”
Meyer said her hope is to gather information to not only highlight Floyd County as a tourist destination, but help the area for those who live here.
“I think there’s different points of view with this: you’ve got business owners who want to see more people coming through the door, then the people who live here who want more things to do for their kids,” she said. “Trying to get rid of the narrative that there’s nothing to do here is key; we have great hiking and biking trails, and more. We want to highlight that to get tourists here, but more importantly, for the people who live here.”
The community meeting is scheduled from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. on April 23 at the Mountain Arts Center. The event will also continue from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on April 24 at the MAC.
“This is for everyone,” Meyer added, “and we want to hear about all the ideas people feel will make Floyd County a better place to live.”