In a town of 600 people in Southwest Iowa, American Rescue Plan (ARP) funding saved a community center that was falling into disrepair due to lack of revenue coming in from local events.
Of COVID, City Council Member Glenn Hurst said, “there was also the loss of those things that make life meaningful. Isolation from each other — on top of the isolation we experience as a rural community — was hard on us…The effect of these and other missed events took a toll on our mental and emotional states.”
The Community Club, without income from the regular slate of weddings, bingo, vendor fairs, and Halloween Trunk-or-Treat events, couldn’t replace streetlight bulbs, the broken refrigerators, or the failed hot water heater.
ARP funding, signed into law by President Biden and directed in large part to local communities, filled a critical economic gap for Minden.
Weeks after funding was allocated to the Community Club, the annual Father Daughter Dance returned and a small Iowa town did a little bit of healing.
