Prosperity Summit set for August 12

Hardin County Economic Development will host a Prosperity Summit with a focus on agriculture on Tuesday, August 12 at the Mid-Ohio Energy Community Room in Kenton.  This event is sponsored by Mid-Ohio Energy Cooperative, Inc. and Quest Federal Credit Union.  Attendance is free through the generosity of our sponsors, but RSVP's are required.

Economic Development has convened a WealthWorks committee to explore opportunities for wealth building in Hardin County's agriculture industry sector, using the WealthWorks approach to economic development.

The WealthWorks approach is designed to produce and sustain these results:

• Build a more self-reliant and robust area economy
• Increase upward mobility overall and advance the livelihoods of lower-income people, firms, and places
• Bring underutilized community assets - people, place, property and know-how - into fuller participation and production
• Strengthen industry sectors that fuel the economy
• Create wealth that sticks - because it is locally owned, controlled and reinvested
• Forge valued partnerships that can ably and flexibly connect again and again to power increasingly resilient regions

The purpose of the Prosperity Summit is to explore potential opportunities for demand that Hardin County producers could meet, if the right connections (or value-chains) were made.  The Summit is an opportunity to bring together a larger group of potential value-chain partners, including demand-side buyers, supply-side producers, processors, logistics, investors, government representatives, and any other potential value-chain participants.

The WealthWorks committee is working on brainstorming potential demand partners and performing outreach to measure interest.  Interested demand partners will be invited to participate in the Summit.

The work of the committee and the Summit are being facilitated by Melissa Levy of Community Roots and Shanna Ratner of Yellow Wood Associates, a co-creator of WealthWorks.

For more information on the Prosperity Summit or the WealthWorks committee, contact our office at 419-673-4131 or alliance@hccba.com.