Members of the Johnson County Public Library and Aspire Economic Development mark the transition of a community volunteer program to library leadership Monday. The program is now named CommUnity Matters.
SUBMITTED PHOTOFrom hosting scavenger hunts to funding public art to promoting locally-grown food, the Community Development Volunteer Program has spent the last decade highlighting the strengths of Johnson County.
On Monday, Aspire Johnson County transferred leadership of the decade-old program to the Johnson County Public Library, which library leaders renamed CommUnity Matters. Library officials will focus CommUnity Matters’ next efforts on promoting Johnson County’s bicentennial celebration later this year, likely with a scavenger hunt for people to visit the county’s historic sites, said Jody Veldkamp, library spokesperson.
The dates, sites and exact format of the activity have not been finalized, he said.
“Two summers ago, we did The Great Parks Quest with Aspire to get people to visit the parks in Johnson County. Last year, we had The Great Arts Quest, to get people to see public art in Johnson County,” Veldkamp said. “Later this year, we will look at various historic sites in Johnson County in a similar format for people to learn more about the great places where we all love to live.”
The Johnson County Development Corporation, which dissolved and reformed as Aspire, started the Community Development Volunteer Program in 2013 to educate people about how to improve the community. The program had three areas of focus: workforce development, quality of life issues and growth and planning, which look at ways to improve infrastructure, Veldkamp said in an email.
Since the program started, its volunteers have partnered with Franklin College on a program to highlight local farm stands, restaurants and farmers markets, hosted meetings with state transportation officials and state representatives to inform the community about the Interstate 69 project and partnered with Festival Country to prepare a report about how the county could approach destination marketing, according to information from the library’s website.
The Johnson County Public Library has collaborated with Aspire on these efforts for years, making it a natural transition, said Amanda Rubadue, Aspire’s vice president of economic development.
“The library has been an amazing partner since the inception of the Community Development Volunteer Program and there have always been quite a few library staff members that have volunteered on our teams. It seemed like a very good fit to pass the baton to the Johnson County Public Library,” she said.
Library leaders will look to promote civic engagement and education with future CommUnity Matters efforts, library director Lisa Lintner said in an email.
“In the past several years, JCPL has reached outside of the library through a series of Community Conversations with organizations around Johnson County to gather input on things that matter to our residents,” she said. “We are excited to jumpstart CommUnity Matters by having volunteers work on a project to celebrate the county’s bicentennial and encourage residents to learn more about the great place we all love to live, work, learn and play.”
