INDIANAPOLIS – The Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority (IHCDA) today announced the 2018-19 My Community, My Vision (MCMV) participating communities. Local Units of Governments (LUGs) or high school classes in Batesville, Huntingburg, Warsaw, North Putnam and Union County were selected to participate in this year’s program designed to engage young people in the community planning process.
“Through the My Community, My Vision program, local units of government selected to participate have the unique opportunity to work alongside youth on community planning efforts,” said Lt. Governor Suzanne Crouch, who serves as board chair of IHCDA. “I can’t wait to see the plans that are developed over the next few months.”
The LUGs and high school student groups will work in partnership with student mentors from the IUPUI School of Public and Environmental Affairs’ graduate program. Over the next few months these groups will develop their plans through regular mentor meetings, a local stakeholder meeting and three additional statewide meetings. In April 2019 the groups will meet a final time for an event in Indianapolis to present their plans. Each group will receive $5,000 to implement a project that is in their plan.
The program is in its fifth year and was developed with the belief that young people in Indiana should not have to leave their hometowns in order to achieve their dreams. Previous participating groups have developed community vision plans that lay the groundwork for student entrepreneurship opportunities, community gardens, bike-share programs, farmer’s markets, and other programs students wanted to see brought to their hometown.
Past youth-driven plans have been adopted by local units of government and one group even raised about $4,000 in grant funding and in-kind donations to implement projects developed in the MCMV planning process.
Click here for more information about the MCMV program or contact: CLethig@ihcda.IN.gov.
