Happy New Year! Of course, it’s nearly the end of January, but I have a personal rule that I can wish people a Happy New Year until I stop accidentally writing 2025 on checks and letters. It’s amazing to me that a simple turn of a calendar page can make the possibilities of new directions seem more real. Let’s face it, there is nothing stopping us from creating resolutions to eat better, exercise more, stop smoking or read more books in April or September. But January is for planning.
Greater Peoria EDC is in the midst of planning, too. Though our resolution for this year is to complete the work on a new Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS), this is one we have been working on for over six months. As a reminder, the CEDS is a five-year strategy for how we will grow the regional economy. We started writing our last CEDS just about now in 2020, but then a little thing called COVID derailed just about everything. We got back to that work in late 2020, and the Big Table CEDS 2021-2025 was adopted in early 2021. That plan served as the foundation for the start and expansion of so many great efforts: Distillery Labs, the Illinois River Master Port Plan, the Regional Workforce Alliance, just to name a few.
The phrase “CEDS” might not ring a bell, but you might have already helped in its development. In October, a few hundred of you gathered at the Peoria Civic Center for the Big Table. Or maybe you’ve participated in one of the satellite Rural Big Table conversations in Havana, El Paso, or Tremont. (Or will join us in Lincoln on February 19.) Those events were all about conversations about our region — both its present and its future. Those conversations will fuel work of the CEDS Strategy Team as they work to develop a set of goals and strategies for the future. You will see the thoughts you shared there, the ideas you discovered for improving our region, and your hopes for progress reflected in the final strategy.
Greater Peoria EDC’s mandate to author and steward our region’s plan comes from the US Economic Development Administration (EDA). The EDA has a simple mission: bring communities and businesses together to build a more resilient and prosperous economy through cooperation and intentionality. The EDA recognizes that economies are not confined to the borders of just one town or one county. Economies are regional, with employees, customers and goods flowing across porous borders that are in larger part just lines on a map. So too must our plan be regional – not just for Peoria but for Greater Peoria. That’s why the CEDS is put together by a broad team that includes representatives from each of our counties, industries like agriculture, manufacturing, and social service agencies, and educational institutions, and ordinary citizens.
This partnership with EDA and the creation of a strong CEDS has paid real dividends. Since 2020, Greater Peoria EDC and regional partners have secured nearly $20 million in EDA grants. This includes two rounds of programmatic funding for the IT Workforce Accelerator plus construction for Distillery Labs and the Workforce Sustainability Center at Illinois Central College, as well as an additional grant to make improvements to ICC’s East Peoria and Pekin campuses. When you have a good plan, you are ready to take advantage of funding opportunities.
My mom often said, “Many hands make light work.” Well, economic development is never light work, no matter how many hands, but we will be more successful when we are all working together. If you’ve been a part of a Big Table conversation, you are already one of the sets of hands at work. Be on the lookout for other opportunities in the coming months to weigh in on the strategies we are developing. We are looking forward to presenting you with the Big Table CEDS 2026-2030 by Fall of this year. Reach out to me if you want to learn more.