University of Illinois Extension
Bureau County Unit
April 2006
Enriching Lives Through Education
Welcome
Community Leadership & Economic Development
- Extension staff serves on the Bureau County Health Department's CHAMPS Grant for DePue. Extension has offered to provide Nutrition & Healthy Lifestyle staff/programming to support the school's wellness initiative in 2006/2007.
- Extension is collaborating with the City of Princeton, City of Spring Valley, and Bureau County Administrator/Board to develop a joint county-wide Community & Economic Development position which will provide for a regional development approach and development of a county website.
- Extension has been meeting with the Princeton Chamber of Commerce and it's Promotion Committee to plan a two-part program series for this Spring. On April 19 the second program session, "Creative Marketing on Limited Budgets" & "Connecting Tourism to Retail", was delivered by Extension's Community and Economic Development Educator, Terry Feinberg, from the Rockford Extension Center.
- A joint collaboration for the development of a high speed, distance video-conference facility is in progress. The collaborators include Extension, City of Princeton, and Becker Professional Suites (Daryl and Marsha Becker); the project will provide for the latest in technology which will allow people in the facility to communicate both through live audio and video TV. Connection to multiple distance sites will offer speakers, meetings, educational programs and more to be scheduled providing a savings to time and travel costs, while opening up new and expanded opportunities for local groups. The City of Princeton awarded $2,000.00 to Extension through the Community Betterment Grant in support of the project. Extension has submitted a Technology Challenge Grant to the State Extension Office for needed technology. The Technology Challenge Grant was approved in the amount of $16,500. and recently increased to $19,000. Installation is now underway with plans for completion by the end of June.
- Extension staff have been involved on behalf of Bureau County Tourism and Princeton Tourism with developing the Illinois River Country Nature Tourism project. Plans are still continuing to be developed toward proposing a national scenic byway designation along the Illinois River that would include a spur from the northwest that would pass through Princeton and Eastern Bureau County.
- A local government tele- net was provided on "Is Water Everywhere?" at the Extension Office on April 20. Water issues and how those issues relate to Illinois communities as well as the current status of water resources was discussed.|
- University of Illinois Extension - Bureau County has a new look to their website. Check the website to find many resources for youth, families, communities and agriculture! http://web.extension.uiuc.edu/bureau/
- Extension staff continues to work with a task force to prepare Youth Leadership "Best Practices" standards for use statewide with University of Illinois Extension programming and others interested in providing leadership opportunities. This team is exploring best practices for programs involving mentoring, teens as teachers, youth/adult partnership including youth working with governing bodies and leadership academies to help youth feel invested in their communities. Staff is also working on a team of 5 educators piloting special programming on local government in Illinois. More than 400 youth in Northwest Illinois are participating in the
pilot of this project.
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