When I was doing research for Rural Renaissance, I was not at all surprised to learn that more and more people want to live in smaller towns. According to Gallup, nearly half of Americans across every age group prefer the country life. I am one of them, and maybe you are, too.
Last week was a week of extraordinary, abundant good! On Monday, Earth Day, Groundswell, Inc. celebrated being selected for a $156 million US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF) Solar For All Award for our SE Rural Power Team.
I took the bus to and from school until I was old enough to drive. When the bell rang, and we’d pour out of school, dozens of yellow school buses would be lined up waiting for us with their engines idling. Particularly on hot and humid days, the diesel fumes would be suffocating, and I’d often end up with a headache by the time we pulled out of the school’s drive. If you rode the bus, you may have similar memories, too.
At last year’s Roadshow, I missed a very wonderful connection thanks to the somewhat enigmatically labeled “XNA” airport code for the Northwest Arkansas Airport – which you can and should read all about in this month’s article from Bill Brown.
Thanks to a suggestion from a former mayor of Fort Wayne, I read a book by Michelle Moore, Rural Renaissance: Revitalizing America’s Hometowns through Clean Power. Intrigued, I invited the author to be the keynote speaker at the Indiana Sustainability and Resilience Conference. She said yes!
Join Groundswell and Pastor Billy Humphrey, Founder and Executive Director of City of Refuge, on February 7th at noon ET for an online discussion about Direct Pay's impact on non-profits. Pastor Humphrey has seen firsthand what the "Direct Pay" provisions of the IRA can mean for non-profits. He will share examples of the impact of direct pay on his community, and we'll answer questions about what this could mean for your community.
