St. Joseph is planning for their future.

The first MAPPING The Future of Your Community meeting took place at the Prince of Peace Lutheran Church on Oct. 20.

The program, sponsored by the Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs at Western Illinois University, helps communities set goals for their future.

Gisele Hamm, manager of MAPPING, ran the session.

She told the citizens that communities often evolve in stages and communities who are facing a downturn are not unsaveable.

"It's an opportunity to stabilize or revitalize a community," Hamm said.

Approximately 50 residents took part in the meeting.

Residents involved included pastors, members of area churches, retirees, village trustees, local business people and residents with children in St. Joseph schools.

Hamm told residents it was important to have a good cross section of residents represented at the meeting.  Currently there are twice as many men participating in the study than women. The group was encouraged to try and find more women to participate.

The purpose of the project is to bring rural communities together to create a long-range vision for their community and develop and action plan to to accomplish those goals, Hamm said.

The process brings the community together under a common vision, Hamm said.

 "You have to set your goals high," she said.

After the group sets goals some towns decide to have town meetings where residents can get information about the goals and volunteer to help with the project.

"We have had some towns have very successful town meetings," she said.

Hamm said the town meeting promotes the attitude of "It's our community, our responsibility."

Hamm reminded the group that some of the goals may take a while to accomplish.

St. Joseph first participated in the MAPPING program in 1998. Since 1998 the village has built the Community Sports Complex and worked to beautify downtown, which was influenced by the MAPPING.

The village also has implemented a cell phone tax, upgraded village ordinances and examined the issue of hiring a village administrator since the original MAPPING program.

Hamm had participants list the negatives  and positives in the community since 1998. Some negatives included downtown businesses closing, flooding issues and residential growth stopping.

Positives included the sports complex, subdivision growth, downtown beautification, and restaurants coming to St. Joseph.
The group discussed St. Joseph's community and economic development.

According to MAPPING the average home in St. Joseph is worth $100,000 to $199,000 and the average income is $62,038.
Also at the meeting, the group discussed community assets to build upon and community challenged to address and brainstormed goals for the community.

Challenges included: lack of housing for seniors, lack of local job growth, lack of a community building, empty commercial buildings, inefficiency with decision making due to two school districts existing within St. Joseph, lack of youth opportunities in the summer and the condition of Rt. 150.

One major asset to the community that was discussed was the quality of the school districts.  Numerous residents in attendance said they had specifically moved to St. Joseph for the schools.

Other assets included the wide variety of housing, high rate of volunteerism, numerous churches, high quality of village services, the numerous parks, brush and leaf pick up, the EMT and volunteer fire department, community festival, an active Chamber of Commerce, and numerous youth groups.

A well connected village government who listen to residents and solve problems was also mentioned as an asset.   Hamm said St. Joseph was lucky to have a well connected government.

"It is an asset that you have a famous mayor," she said. "I have had numerous positive things about B.J. from around the state."

Another asset that was discussed was a local newspaper.  The residents said that many communities have lost their local newspaper and having one was an asset for the community. At the next meeting the group will vote for the top goals in the
community, brainstorm ways to achieve the goals and prioritizing strategies to achieve those goals. Additional meetings will take place at 6 p.m. on Nov. 3 and 17 at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church.

The Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs does numerous things for rural
communities including:
Economic development
business data
education
health care
Transportation
sustainable agriculture
Renewable Energy