I hope everyone is having a relaxing and enjoyable summer! My family is back from vacation, I am over my jetlag (mostly), and although we enjoyed being across the pond, I have never missed my clothes dryer more. I hug it at least once a day now. I will also never take air conditioning for granted again. And I have caught my husband on more than one occasion whispering, “I love you, you make me so happy,” to the ice maker. I am not kidding.
As the last few weeks of summer vacation wind down, and we all get back to our normal routines, I want to provide a few updates about what we’re doing to help rural Washington communities…
Work in the ROAR communities is progressing, and several will be ready for the convening of their Community Table this fall. This is the name we have internally given to our super-sized sustained tech team that will include members from local and county government, relevant state and federal entities, the community, relevant nonprofits, philanthropic and investment entities, and others. Our project managers will work with town leaders to identify everyone who may be able to contribute to solutions and will add people as needed/identified.
We are so proud of the ongoing Community Solar project with our partner, Zero Emissions Northwest (ZEN)! Schools are being added weekly (see our press release from early July). Given how beneficial this program is to so many, it has recently been renamed “The Giving Grid” by the folks at ZEN, and we look forward to the launch of that website early this fall. There’ll be more to share in a few weeks as construction begins in Harrington in mid-August and other locations start projects throughout the fall.
I adhere to the Drucker philosophy that you cannot manage what you do not measure; how can we begin to address the chronic infrastructure problems in so many of our small rural communities if we do not fully understand the scope of those problems? We are embarking on a rural infrastructure assessment and inventory, starting with surveys about water, wastewater, and parks. This will include rural public pool data gathering as we did not want to overburden clerks and administrators with multiple surveys. It is our intent to share this data statewide to facilitate better and broader understanding of the challenges faced by our smallest rural communities so fully informed solutions can be developed.
We will be giving presentations and staffing a vendor table at the Infrastructure Assistance Coordinating Council (IACC) in early October in Wenatchee. If you are attending this year, stop by and say hello!
Enjoy the last few weeks of summer and remember to tell your appliances once in a while how much you appreciate them 😉
Take care,
Jody
