Foreign aid: Skills developed by Peace Corps volunteers in exotic Third World countries are being put to use in All-American Grundy County.
“People are people all over the world,” according to Peace Corps veteran Will Rugg. “Economic development is the same in many ways, whether you’re doing it in French Cameroon or here.”
And the experience of adjusting to a different culture “carries over well,” said Rugg, who grew up in California, spent 2 1/2 years with the Peace Corps in the French-speaking Republic of Cameroon and is now working in rural Illinois. Rugg said his first reaction to the Midwestern landscape was, “Where’s the mountains?”
Chris Manheim directs the Grundy Economic Development Council, to which Rugg has been assigned as part of a fellowship program sponsored by Western Illinois University and Illinois State University. “The philosophy . . . is that Peace Corps veterans have a lot to offer,” Manheim said.
And in areas like Grundy County–where only one town, Morris, has a population over 10,000–economic development assistance is hard to come by, Manheim explained. Most of the towns can’t afford to hire the economic development staffers common in Will County’s suburbs.
So Rugg has been helping local merchants develop a marketing plan for downtown Morris, assisting with grant writing and doing surveys.
Whether development comes to exotic nations on the other side of the globe or the local cornfields, many of the goals are the same.
“We want to keep the rural feel and keep (the small towns) thriving,” Manheim said.
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