Register editor
Lots more people now know a little more about life in Allen County thanks to a feature article on Thrive Allen County in the recent Kansas Alumni magazine. The quarterly publication circulates to the 42,000 alumni of the University of Kansas, and its not a stretch to say they live the world over.
As Thrives CEO and a graduate of KU, David Toland was the centerpiece of the eight-page feature in the glossy magazine. Toland touted not only the ease of living in small town America, such as being able to ride a bike around town, but also its challenges, evidenced by its high rate of poverty, lack of affordable housing, and poor health outcomes.
Ever since Thrive began in 2007, a primary goal has been to make Allen County a healthier place to live. Thats come in fits and starts. Yes, we have more opportunities through the rail trails, farmers market and a local bike shop, but lifestyle changes are difficult and it takes time to move the needle.
A specific measure of our overall health is the nationwide County Health Rankings and Roadmaps. In 2010, Allen County was ranked 94th among the states 105 counties. Eight years later were up to 84th. Determinants include high school graduation rates, unemployment, teen births, tobacco use, obesity, diabetes, and access to healthy food.
Another objective of Thrive is economic development.
Almost as soon as Toland returned to his hometown of Iola in 2007, he began rallying the call for a new Allen County Hospital which came to fruition in 2013. Since then, Thrive has been instrumental in bringing a bike shop to Iola and the new G&W grocery store. In Moran, Thrive backed the goal of creating a cooperative to rescue its lone grocery store, now named the Marmaton Market, and securing county support.
None of this has been easy and, in fact, continues to meet resistance.
Just Thursday I received an email from an Iolan critical of Thrives work on behalf of the Moran store because among its items will be cigarettes, soda and alcohol.
I thought that Thrive Allen County was pushing for a healthy lifestyle in Allen County, he wrote.
The Allen County taxpayers coughed up $100,000 of our hard-earned money so that Moran has a place you can buy junk and unhealthy food, he said.
Sometimes people work way too hard to find the negative.
Thrives efforts to bring G&W to town also raised alarms as did its work with Iola Industries to build the Eastgate Loft apartments, which are now at full occupancy.
John McRae, former mayor, was quoted in the article as saying, Theres an awful lot of folks in small towns that want things to just stay the same. The problem is, you dont stay the same. Youre either moving forward or youre moving backwards.
That resistance to change also has an uglier side in that there are those who feel ones success can only mean anothers loss.
Called a zero-sum mentality, it pits stores and businesses, school districts, industries and even entire towns against each other.
