Nate Spangle: You convinced 10 college students to move to Wabash County for the summer and live in an RV on the Wabash River.
Alex Downard: We're trying to attract tourism 'cause that's where future residents come from. It all starts with a visit.
Nate Spangle: It starts with a visit,
Alex Downard: but it's investing in our young people so that they feel Wabash County.
Yeah. Is a place to stay.
Nate Spangle: How do you guys promote and encourage your local residents to get out and be the best possible community members they can be. From South Bend to Evansville and everywhere in between. This is Get IN the show focused on the Hoosier State and the incredible stories happening here today.
I'm Nate Spangle, founder of Get Indiana, and I will be your host for today's conversation. If you are looking for a summer camp that truly serves Indiana families, I want to tell you about Jameson Camp. They sit on 135 acres on the west side of Indianapolis with trails ponds, a creek, a swimming pool, and adventure courses.
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It is designed to be a safe, welcoming space for every child. Summer Camp 2026 is now on sale so you can register today. They also host field trips, corporate retreats, and have space available year round for nonprofits, churches, and youth groups. Learn more today@jamesoncamp.org. My guest today is Alex Downard and he's the president and CEO of the Community Foundation of Wabash County.
Alex is an Indianapolis native and a graduate of Manchester University, and Alex has built his entire career around bringing people together to tackle challenges through the development of communities with focuses in areas like housing, quality of life, and long-term community growth. At his core, he is an advocate for Wabash County and rural Indiana with a focus on creating opportunities for communities to attract and retain residents.
Today we're gonna get an overview of Wabash County and the insane innovations that have come out of there. We're gonna dive into the work they've done in the past few years to make Wabash County an innovative, awesome place to live, work, and play. And finally, we're gonna round it out by talking about strategies that other rural communities can take to increase the quality of life in their hometown.
Alex, welcome to Get IN.
Alex Downard: Hey, thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it,
Nate Spangle: dude. Okay, so one, this has been, uh, a conversation a long time in the making. I have heard so many people from Indianapolis particularly talking about there's this guy up in Wabash County doing these super innovative things that, that you need to talk to.
And I was like, one, I know Wabash, Wabash County, but it, it's not traditional that rural Indiana is. Making their circles in the Indianapolis Business Network. You know, that's not necessarily the most common of things typically, especially in a place like Wabash. Maybe that's popular in Fort Wayne, or maybe like pushing into Warsaw, but not necessarily getting notoriety in the central Indiana area.
So I'm excited to dive into one, your journey and, and getting plugged into the community foundation in Wabash. And also diving into the crazy innovations that have come from Wabash. People need to know about. Uh, there's a, there's a history of electric lights. There's a history of, I think, the thermometer and hot water, and maybe not thermometer, uh, the thermostat and hot water and Honeywell.
And so take me into one, what makes Wabash historically relevant beyond the state of Indiana?
Alex Downard: Yeah, thanks Nate. I appreciate it. And I'm humbled to be on the podcast. I've been a huge fan. Love what you're doing across the state of Indiana and, and have. Gotten to listen to a lot of the episodes and the guests you've had.
So truly, truly honored and humbled to be here on behalf, on behalf of our entire community, uh, up in Wabash County. But Wabash County is truly a rural community population of around 30,000.
Nate Spangle: So Wabash County and the seat of Wabash County is Wabash, Indiana.
Alex Downard: Yep. So this, the county seat is the city of Wabash population of around 10, 11,000 people.
Yep. And then we have the town of North Manchester, which is at the northern part of the county, which is between five and 6,000 home to the Manchester University, Spartans. And then we have three incorporated communities, other incorporated communities that are all less than a thousand people. And so that's the town of LaFontaine, that's the city of, or the town of Roann and the town of Lagro.
Nate Spangle: Historic Roann, uh, the Covered Bridge is there. Right?
Alex Downard: Absolutely.
Nate Spangle: Okay. Alright. So that gives us a good gauge of like the geography, but then Wabash, Indiana has been on the map for a long, long time. Uh, talk to me about the history of innovation and science that's come out of Wabash.
Alex Downard: Yeah. So. The city of Wabash is truly the first electrically lit city in the entire world.
Nate Spangle: So you're talking about like electric streetlights?
Alex Downard: Absolutely. So the very first light was at the top of the courthouse, I believe, and I was not born and raised in the city of Wabash. So bear with me. Yeah. If I mess up any of our facts here, but, uh, the courthouse, uh, they lit up the top of the courthouse and people gathered around the city square to watch this first lighting.
Nate Spangle: Who, like, who was it like who had the evil scientist laboratory in Wabash that was making this?
Alex Downard: I am not sure. I'm not
Nate Spangle: sure. That's like a crazy thing, uh, to be like, yeah, you know, we're gonna plug this up to the power grid and. Sorry, I don't even know if there was a power grid at that point. Probably not.
But we're gonna plug this in and, and start to light up the city. So then was it just one light on top of the courthouse or did that expand?
Alex Downard: That's my understanding was one light and then over time expanded to street lights and, and lighting the entire city.
Nate Spangle: Wabash, Indiana became the first electrically lighted city on March 31st, 1880.
On that night, uh, four Charles brush, carbon arc lamps were installed atop the Wabash County courthouse, powered by a 12 horsepower steam engine generator in the basement illuminating the entire town. So imagine you have like having four spotlights pointed in each direction, just like, and like all of a sudden at night it's like all of a sudden you have light.
Alex Downard: Yeah.
Nate Spangle: So not only is that going on, not only is there the first electrically lit city, but you also have the history of Mark Honeywell, I believe is his name. Absolutely. And the innovations that he had coming out of Wabash. What is the history of Mark Honeywell?
Alex Downard: Mark Honeywell, uh, began his business and a, I believe is from Wabash County, Indiana.
And you'll have to fact check me on on that too, Nate. Um, but his foundation was founded and is still located in the city of Wabash.
Nate Spangle: Yeah. Yep. He was born in Wabash, Indiana. Um, and they, I mean, they developed like some crazy cool things. Uh, Honeywell developed a hot water home heating system and by 1905, he had installed the system in his house, uh, and is thought to be the first such system in North America.
You know, this is like the original thermostat. Yeah.
Alex Downard: People would recognize that probably the most. Right. You look at your thermostat, a lot of them have Honeywell on them. And that's Mark from Mark Honeywell.
Nate Spangle: This is, yeah. Honeywell Heating. Uh, I mean, by 1927, the annual company sales were more than 1.5 million, which in 1927 is a ton.
450 people worked in the Wabash factory. Like, that's great. Oh, his Honeywell's main competitor was WR Sweat. Great name for a heating company. That, that's right. Like sweat. Oh, that's just good marketing right there. And I think the, the companies ended up, they merged to form the Minneapolis Honeywell Regulator Company.
Uh, I don't know what year that was, but, uh, but Honeywell still has the, the foundation in Wabash County, correct?
Alex Downard: Yep, absolutely. Honeywell's one of our anchor institutions. And, and you've been to some of the venues that Honeywell, uh, owns and operates in our community, and so it was really. As we talk about quality of life, truly an anchor and a driver in our county today.
Nate Spangle: Yeah, I mean they have the Honeywell Center, which, you know, you're about Wabash, Indiana. They get some pretty cool acts that come and tour through, through Wabash. Like, I mean, have you been, what are some of the most memorable that you've been to?
Alex Downard: So I'm a country music fan through, through and so just most recently saw Shenandoah, who's a longtime country music, uh, band group came to the Honeywell Center.
Nate Spangle: Did you take two dozen roses?
Alex Downard: I did
Nate Spangle: absolutely
Alex Downard: meet greet before it was fantastic.
Nate Spangle: That's sick. Okay. Yeah, Shenandoah. And I think, I feel like they get a lot of similar artists too. If people are familiar with like the Brown County Music Center, it's like those 'cause it's a little bit of an older population.
They get some like historic. I dunno if that's the right word to say, but like some of the like legacy country acts.
Alex Downard: Yeah, I would say it's a combination of that and then the artists that are opening at a Ruoff. Right. So we're talking Mitchell Tenpenny, Cooper Alan, some of those folks Right. That, that come and play at the Honeywell Center, who may be an opening act at, at the largest of venues, um, but of the main act at Honeywell Center.
Nate Spangle: Okay. So how did you end up, uh, in Wabash County?
Alex Downard: So, I grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana and was gonna go to a state school, right. Ball State, IU, Purdue, and then played football in high school. And after we lost, decided that I wasn't done playing football. Um, and so started looking at smaller schools across the state that I thought I could play football at and was getting recruited to and landed at Manchester University.
Um, and so went up to school at Manchester from 2016 to 2020. Uh, had an unbelievable experience, studied entrepreneurship and political science. Um, and Manchester is is at the root of my journey to get to Wabash County, and ultimately when I graduated, why I stayed.
Nate Spangle: Yeah, see, that's interesting. I feel like most people go to one of these rural schools, like a DePauw, a Wabash, Manchester, Trine, like all these different schools around the state, but not a lot of them end up staying in those communities.
It's like, okay, I'm from indie. I go up there, I spend four years. Love it. Have a great time. And it's like, cool. Now let's get a job in maybe Fort Wayne or more than likely, you know, come back to Indianapolis. What led you to stay in Wabash County?
Alex Downard: Yeah, grateful for experiences in my as during my time as a student, right?
Yeah. So it was connected to the community through internships and a variety of different things. But really my freshman year of college fell in love with small town Indiana
Nate Spangle: a as someone from the big city from Indianapolis. What attracted you about small town, rural Indiana?
Alex Downard: The connection to community, right?
And, and the opportunity to get engaged and be involved. And I would say now, looking back eight years later, uh, that it is truly. Rural community's biggest competitive advantage, right? Is the opportunity for young people to get engaged early in their career. Um, that that sometimes may take longer in the big city, right?
Yeah. Those opportunities exist, but there's just more folks after those opportunities.
Nate Spangle: And it's interesting if you are drawn and motivated by impact in rural communities, there is a huge opportunity for impact. And actually, so, so you're a graduate of Cardinal Ritter High School and so I'm the head resting coach at Bishop Chatard High School.
And I'm from a small town like, you know, similar to the size. We're a little bit smaller than North Manchester, but like in that similar fashion. I think there's a lot of overlap between like those, again, our, our avid rural communities are gonna, you're gonna hate this comment, but between those like private school communities in Indianapolis and between rural small towns like the community aspect, like growing up on the west side of Indie in that small private school community, like people have each other's backs and you end up finding a lot of similarities when you go to a small town of like, you know, the fundraisers and the fish fry or the, this, that and the other.
Like, people really want to help drive their local community forward. And I, I don't know, I, I think that it's pretty cool and I've seen a lot of si 'cause I was an. I hated private schools. I was like, oh my God, private school guy, like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then I got involved with them and I was like, wait, this kind of feels like a small town within the big city of Indianapolis.
So it's not, I mean, it's pretty cool for you to see that about rural Indiana and then start to just dive head first. When did you get involved at the Community foundation?
Alex Downard: I graduated from Manchester University in 2020 and started working in business development for a large commercial construction company.
Started a sister commercial real estate company with a team there. Um, and was really meeting folks across Northeast Indiana and across the region. Um, and then, uh. Kind of all, I've always had an entrepreneurial spirit through high school. Started at an asphalt seal co company with a buddy. Um, and I've always kind of had different side hustles, but started in the beginning of 22 into 21, kinda my own single person consulting shop where my first client was the company I worked for right out of school.
And so continued to do business development for them. Um, but then my last client that I had through the business that I had started was, uh, with all of the cities and towns in Wabash County, the Community foundation and our economic development group. And it was all geared around implementing the countywide comprehensive plan that was then branded, Imagine One 85, so we're county number 85 in Indiana.
So one shared vision. The community went through a two year strategic planning process and each of the cities and towns and the county adopted this as the shared vision for the future for our community.
Nate Spangle: Okay. I'm excited to dive into this. Yeah. So. What were the challenges identified, uh, through the Imagine One 85 initiative?
Like obviously then you have a shared vision of how to move forward, but what did they address? Like, Hey, these are the core. Issues that we're facing here in Wabash County that we need to start to chip away at.
Alex Downard: Short answer, the rallying cry was population decline.
Nate Spangle: Yeah.
Alex Downard: Right. But all of the different challenges that come with population decline, right.
Lower enrollment in schools, the shift in a tax base, all of those things that have implications that make it hard for employers to build their business locally. And so those are uniform across rural communities a lot of times in Indiana and across the country. Uh, what I like to say though is our response to those challenges is hopefully what is positioning us for a different future than maybe other communities.
Nate Spangle: Yeah, okay. So they identify the population decline and they identify like, you know, brain drain and those different things. It's like you're importing. You know, several hundred students a year probably like for, for Manchester, right. Like every year as freshmen come in over a hundred, I dunno, what's the class size at Manchester like?
Alex Downard: Uh, the total enrollment's around a thousand. Okay. On the North Manchester campus. Yeah. And so we're talking 250 to three 50 or
Nate Spangle: 400 and I would say like the majority of them would come from outside of the county. Absolutely. Right. You know, so you, so you have a pipeline of new people getting exposed for at least a couple years.
And then it's like, how do we attract others or retain those students that we are bringing in for a, a short period of time.
Alex Downard: Yeah, absolutely. And I would say that the state of Indiana, as you guys know and have probably done podcast episodes in the past, that brain drain issue, Indiana imports students from across the country and from our existing communities.
We're in the top five in the country for students that come to Indiana and to go to college, but then we're in the bottom 10 for retaining those students. Yeah. Right. And so for us it's how do we intentionally expose students while they're at Manchester University or create experiences for other college students that are in Indiana to realize the opportunities that exist in rural communities.
Nate Spangle: Okay. So this comprehensive plan was kind of put into action in 2022, I believe, right? Yep,
Alex Downard: absolutely.
Nate Spangle: Adopted in
Alex Downard: 22. So,
Nate Spangle: adopted in 22. What were the first dominoes that you guys started working on? What was like, okay. And you're a consultant at this point?
Alex Downard: Yep. At that point was a consultant that, uh, had a contract with all of the different entities and got to work alongside the community foundation at
Nate Spangle: that point.
Yeah. So what was the first thing you guys were working on? Like, hey, uh, the first. The first thing we gotta go work on to put this into play is what?
Alex Downard: Yeah. I would say that the majority of initiatives through Imagine One 85, are truly investments in quality of life and quality of place, which are buzzwords, right?
Yes. And so to get down into the trenches and into the weeds, uh, as much as we want, uh, housing has been huge, right? And so a lot of different initiatives around housing, education at all levels, right? So early childhood through adult education, uh, and everything in between has been a huge part of that.
And then those quality of life amenities, right? And so whether it's working with the Honeywell Center to build out the programming that they have, or it's other organizations, companies within our community to continue to invest in the things that make Wabash County a quality place to live and raise a family.
Nate Spangle: Okay. So let's, let's get a little more granular. Yeah. Like, what was the first, whether it be housing or quality of life project, like what was the first one you guys thought of on a, on a whiteboard somewhere, had the funding for it and then brought to life?
Alex Downard: I'll start with a small example, right? Yeah. So in Wabash County, we have a small community, the town of Lagro, and that's where I live today.
Lagro is less than 400 people and has always been the poorest community in Wabash County of all of our communities.
Nate Spangle: Okay.
Alex Downard: In 20 16, 20 17, local group gets together and gets a trail done. Lot of local philanthropy and, and leadership connects a six mile trail from the town of Lagro to downtown Wabash along the Wabash River.
So this river trail is put in. Yeah. At this time, after that trail goes in, a lot of local people that have spent their entire life in Lagro said, we're not gonna see our community decline anymore. And so after that trail was built, local people, non-profit and for-profits started buying up old buildings, old homes, and renovating those, those facilities.
Right? Whoa. And so it's created this contagious momentum to where now somebody like myself grew up in a city in the Indy Metro area of 2 million people now lives in a town of less than 400. And you have restaurants, you have businesses, and you have people that are moving from all over into the renovated houses in this community.
And so was sitting one night at one of those local eateries, the 950 Speakeasy Bistro, right on the Wabash River along that river trail. Was sitting there with uh, our former state senator, Senator Andy Zay, who's been a long time friend of mine dating back to when I was at Manchester University. And Andy and I were like, what continues to put Lagro on the map?
Right? What's next for the town of Lagro? And we started thinking through, he said, you need a Hollywood sign in the town of Lagro. So truly on the back of a cocktail napkin, sketch out what it would look like to have Lagro letters, but right on 24, right? So the town of Lagro is right off us 24 that runs from Lafayette to Fort Wayne.
And so as he was thinking about that next thing you know, that napkin sketch of an idea, if you drive down 24 today, you see these letters 12, 15 feet up in the air with lights on 'em that spell out Lagro.
Nate Spangle: No way.
Alex Downard: And so, as you know, driving along the highway you see these little small green signs that have the name of a city or town as you're driving, right?
And so
Nate Spangle: I have seen, I just rolled over, uh, a hundred towns that I've been to though so far this year. I have seen. A hundred of those small, little like green signs. Absolutely. Yeah.
Alex Downard: But haven't probably seen like steel letters fabricated letters up in the air with lights on 'em that say Lagro.
Nate Spangle: Wow.
Alex Downard: And so we called that Project Lagro in Lights, worked with the Indiana Destination Development Corporation for part of that funding.
Raise the other half locally in Wabash County.
Nate Spangle: Okay. What does, like, and I don't know if this is probably public information, what does it cost to to do a project like that?
Alex Downard: Oh, I think the total budget was around $7,000 all in, because we had a local metal fab shop that had started that. We worked with R&D Metal Fabrication.
We had a bunch of local partners and organizations, uh, that all came together to make it, to make it a reality.
Nate Spangle: I don't know, $7,000 is not crazy when you think of like, I dunno, go whatever small town it is, find your flavor of. Li like you have to make it look appealing and attracting. Like the green signs are fine, they like a market.
But if you take that much pride in your, in your welcome, in your, it's almost like your town's handshake to potential travelers. I think that's super cool.
Alex Downard: Worth, worth every dollar. Right. And as
Nate Spangle: we
Alex Downard: talk about
Nate Spangle: Yeah. And not that expensive.
Alex Downard: Not that expensive. And as we talk about rural communities later on, I'm sure in innovation specifically, it's doing more with less.
Nate Spangle: Yeah.
Alex Downard: Right. And so that is exa, that's a small, small example of a project that early on in Imagine One 85 came to fruition then, then kind of moving into larger initiatives. Right. We launched another napkin sketch of an idea in a room full of local community leaders of how do we. Facilitate and create a comprehensive experience for college students in our community to get exposed and then hopefully move back after they graduate from college.
Nate Spangle: Okay. So what's this?
Alex Downard: So we launched the Wabash County Fellowship Program. Uh, we just finished our, we're moving into our third summer of the program now. So it was a two year pilot program when we started, and as we were planning this 12 week kind of comprehensive summer experience where we were gonna partner a company with a college student for a college internship, all with the goal of wrapping around and exposing them to everything that Wabash County had to offer over the summertime.
Nate Spangle: Wow.
Alex Downard: What we kept running into in the room of, of leaders was, where are we gonna house them? Like a lot of communities Housing shortage. Yeah. Right. For full-time residents. Much less for 12 weeks out of the summertime. And so what we landed on the first summer was we worked with a local RV retailer that's in Lagro and, and was able to work with them to get 10 RVs that for the first year of the program, the pilot year, we had 10 college students from across the world.
Four international students, six students from all over the United States, colleges all over, and we house them in RVs, right on the Wabash River in the heart of downtown Wabash for a summer.
Nate Spangle: Hold on. You convinced 10 college students to move to Wabash County for the summer and live in an RV on the Wabash River?
Alex Downard: Yep. Absolutely.
Nate Spangle: And like what local business did they work at?
Alex Downard: Oh, all of our anchor employers. Right. And so our, our longtime family companies, we had for-profit, non-profit marketing, internships, engineering internships across the board.
Nate Spangle: Where were the people from? Like if you could give a, I mean, you probably know 10 different spot, like Yeah.
Where were the four internationals?
Alex Downard: State of oh four Internationals would've been two from Columbia. Um, we had one from India and we had one from Pakistan.
Nate Spangle: No way. Okay. Then you have six, uh, us but not Indiana.
Alex Downard: Uh, we had six US somewhere. Indiana somewhere. Yeah. We had one from the state of Washington that was an engineering student at Rose-Hulman.
Yeah. And so as we talked, we ended up with, through the application process, common application. Right. And through that we had, uh, nine or 10 Rose-Hulman engineering student applicants for a summer engineering program in Wabash County. Right. And so we, one of those students was from the state of Washington.
We had South Bend, we had two that ended up being from Wabash County, but went to school elsewhere. So one went to school in Pennsylvania, one went to Taylor University.
Nate Spangle: Okay. And so that's, if you think, uh, 20% were people with prior experience or exposure to Wabash County, but the 80% had, I don't know, before this internship, if you would've given them a map of Indiana, could they have put their finger on Wabash?
Alex Downard: No. And we surveyed them before. Right. And they hadn't even been to Wabash County. Eight outta 10 had never stepped foot in our community.
Nate Spangle: Did they sign, seal, deliver before ever stepping foot? Or did they have like come and visit?
Alex Downard: No, no sign sealed delivered before ever stepping foot in the community.
Nate Spangle: Also, shout out to them for taking a little bit of a risk,
Alex Downard: and we knew, as you think about the type of people that choose to live in a rural community and the residents we want, it's those risk takers, right? Yeah. Those are the people that move from one place to the other are those that would be willing to make that
Nate Spangle: decision.
Okay, and and what did you do to make them. Plug into the community and feel like it was a hometown quickly.
Alex Downard: Yeah. So the housing piece was huge. Right. And that comes at no cost to the student. Oh yeah. Uh, and so the employers are huge in that. And our community partners is what makes it work. They are walking distance, could throw a football from where they live to the YMCA free memberships for every student.
Right. The Y donates memberships every year as a part of the program.
Nate Spangle: Nice.
Alex Downard: One. Community partnership. Right. We had. Some that we facilitated organically, like Honeywell Center free tickets for the students while they're, to any event, to the drive in while they're at in our community. Right. And we have tailored experiences where we invite them and we have kind of a VIP experience, but then just organically students can go to shows.
Right. Walking distance from the Honeywell Center. So there's things that we planned throughout the summer and then there's things like, we had a student walk into the library and what do you need when you try and run out A book from library is proof of address. Right. Well, our students are living in an RV for the summer, don't have proof of address.
And so true small town spirit. We get a phone call from the library director that says, I have so-and-so here at the library. Can you tell me kind of what's going on? They told me to call you by the time I had hung up the phone. I get a call from the student and they're like, Hey, they, they're giving free library memberships to any library in the county to all these students while they're here.
Right. And so that was just, yeah. Those experiences all along the summer was our community rolling out the red carpet, which is true small town fashion that you know that you get to experience across state.
Nate Spangle: Now, here's an interesting thing I wanna dive into is getting everyone in the county rowing in the same direction on this, like forecasting this vision to, Hey, we're gonna create this innovative rural Indiana college internship program and we really need everyone to put their best foot forward.
How? Who was really spearheading the like initiative to organize the local community and get everyone excited about this opportunity? Because sometimes small communities don't want to grow. They don't want new people. They don't, they don't want that. How did you get everyone in alignment?
Alex Downard: Yeah. The, the step one was the Imagine One 85 planning process.
Yeah. Right. So the community foundation and our economic development group with the ones that pulled in all of our cities and towns and, and a part of that planning surveyed over a thousand residents that were a part of that right across the county. And so the best part. Better than any initiative, any project that's in that comprehensive plan was this spirit of collaboration.
Yeah. And this energy for a brighter future in the county. And and we always talk about how our goal is not to be Hamilton County. Right. We don't wanna be Fishers or Carmel. Some people like that experience. We just wanna be known as a leading rural community. And that requires collaboration.
Nate Spangle: Yeah.
Alex Downard: And so that spirit set that off.
And then when I got to start the implementation work in 2022, it was just building on that collaborative spirit. Right. And so when we try to organize our cities and towns, or try to organize companies or our nonprofit organizations, everybody's leaning into that momentum. Yeah. And that experience.
Nate Spangle: Okay.
One, let's just outline what a community foundation is, because I think there are lots of, I think probably every county, I don't know if it's every county, but a lot of counties, majority of them have a community foundation. What is a community foundation?
Alex Downard: So every county is represented by a community foundation in Indiana, and that's in large part thanks to the Lilly Endowment.
Nate Spangle: Yeah.
Alex Downard: The Lilly Endowment outside of Indianapolis blows a lot of their grant resources through community foundations. And so that's truly what's led to a lot of community foundations starting across Indiana. Yeah. And in Wabash County, our started back in 1954 and our commu every community foundation does a couple core things.
Right. And so a lot of grant making work and establishing endowment funds with donors. Right. Working with donors are kind of the uniform things across the community foundation. But everything else you meet, one community foundation may have a totally different focus based on their community's need than another community foundation.
Yeah. Right. In the community foundation of Wabash County, our mission is to create lasting impact through asset development, nonprofit capacity building, and community leadership.
Nate Spangle: Okay. I feel like when you think of like foundations, they're kind of like the VC or the investment arm of like the nonprofit community development sphere.
Right? Like you, you know, work with Lily, get some funding to like, Hey, we're gonna do X, Y, and Z thing, and then through grant process and different things, you're like allocating those funds to the local change makers.
Alex Downard: Yeah. That's one way to describe it. I, I will tell you that. Wabash County and in a lot of communities in Indiana are extremely fortunate.
We are an extremely generous community. And so just for size and scale, the community foundation of Wabash County is in the top three in total asset size per capita, total grants made per capita and total gifts into our community foundation. Wow. And so that speaks you, you asked the question just of how is Wabash County coming together to do these things?
And it's, we're extremely generous. Right? Wow. And so that's a huge part of, of the momentum. Momentum and success we've seen. Yeah. Um, but community foundations in general Absolutely. Right. That is they are working with their local donors and then they're working to secure outside resources to support the initiatives within their communities.
Nate Spangle: Okay. So you put together this summer internship program as you surveyed those first 10 students, you know, when they're leaving Wabash County. What was their feedback on their time?
Alex Downard: Eight out 10 had never stepped foot in the community before they showed up by the end of the summer, 10 out of 10 said if I could find suitable housing and my employer offers me a full-time role.
I would move to Wabash County, Indiana.
Nate Spangle: Wow.
Alex Downard: And so that's again, just a survey, right? As we look back now, 40% of students in that first class either continued on in an internship role or a full-time capacity with that employer, or have since moved back for employment since they graduated.
Nate Spangle: Okay. So four outta 10.
Alex Downard: Yeah.
Nate Spangle: Like that's pretty good. I mean, obviously for a pilot program, you think about that, right? Absolutely. Uh, now here's a question. Were were two of them, the two that had been in Wabash County to start.
Alex Downard: Uh, one of them has moved back. Yep.
Nate Spangle: One of, and then the other three were net New Wabash. And these are, you think about like future leaders in the community.
These are future, uh, you know, college educated and granted it's like you don't have to go to college to be successful or anything like that. Especially, you know, think about trades and things like that. Yeah. But getting three net new college graduates that moved to Wabash County to, you know, work at these employers, that's really, really good.
Alex Downard: That's a piece of the puzzle.
Nate Spangle: Yeah.
Alex Downard: Right. As we talk about employers and talent attraction and retention, it is one piece of that focus
Nate Spangle: and that, you know, had enough positive momentum that you brought it back for Year two,
Alex Downard: brought it back for year two, 12 students in year two.
Yeah.
Alex Downard: Uh, so we've had 22 students that have come through so far, and then we took a step back as we're going into our third summer and said, we have Manchester University right in our backyard and we've had a couple Manchester University students that have come through the program anyway.
But this summer we'll have 20 spots in the fellowship program. 10 will be set aside for Manchester University students and 10 for co from college students from across the country.
Nate Spangle: Wow. So, I mean, that's pretty cool to be able. And where are they living at now? What's the, is it still the RVs?
Alex Downard: Uh, not this year.
So year two we made a transition and there's a large Airbnb in Wabash called the Sanctuary. We're fortunate to have a lot of Airbnbs across the county. But the Sanctuary is an old church that was renovated into an 18 person Airbnb. Right. And so we house the students year two in the sanctuary. And then as we move into year three with 20 students, it'll be a combination of housing in North Manchester, in an apartment building just off of Manchester University's campus, and then the sanctuary as well.
Nate Spangle: That's awesome. Wow. Bringing 20 college students, uh, 10 with, you know, probably prior, like obviously they go to college in Wabash County, but then, you know, 10 could be from wherever, could have grown up there or could be from different areas. I think that's a really innovative, cool way. How has that been received by the community partners?
Alex Downard: Fantastic so far. Right. I mean, it's truly been the best of what I chose. Why I chose to live in, in rural community, stay in Wabash County was that hospitality. Right. And, and you've talked about that before, the Hoosier Hospitality on your podcast and highlighted leaders in communities. Um, but I just believe what I felt in rural communities that hospitality's.
More alive than maybe in other places. Um, and we've felt that through the fellowship program is just one of those examples
Nate Spangle: that is a super cool initiative. Have, what did you guys model that off of? Or where did you think of the idea and have other counties, communities across the country tried to put something similar together?
Alex Downard: So in that very first room, right when it was a concept, napkin sketch of an idea, we had looked at a program in Detroit, uh, when Detroit was kind of seeing its revitalization. Yeah. They had a similar internship program that was around that, but it was for college graduates. And so it truly was, I mean, we were picking from Fort Wayne had a program back in the day.
We, we stole some from, we stole some from the program in Detroit. There's a program in California that we looked at Yeah. But truly like, like rural communities have to do. Right. It's to make it our own. Right? Yes. And build it to what we can accomplish.
Nate Spangle: And it's like you don't always necessarily need to reinvent the wheel, you just have to like paint the wheel to be the right suit for you.
Right. Shade for you. Right.
Alex Downard: That's right. We talk about innovation in a rural community and, and doing more with less, but that doesn't mean that to your point, that you're creating something brand new.
Nate Spangle: Wow. Okay. So what other initiatives then, if you think of your time since, 'cause when did you become not a consultant and a full-time employee of the Community Foundation?
Alex Downard: So I was 27 when I started at the Community Foundation. And that was a year ago. So March 3rd of, and so my anniversary year anniversary is today, so March 3rd of, uh, 2025.
Nate Spangle: Let's
Alex Downard: go. Yeah. At the community
Nate Spangle: foundation. Was there a previous, uh, president and CEO?
Alex Downard: Yep. So my predecessor was there for 13 years. Oh
Nate Spangle: wow.
Alex Downard: When she started at the community foundation, we were around 20 million total. In asset size. Yeah. Under management. When she was done, we had just crossed over a hundred million in assets under management in, in under 13 years. So incredible leader.
Nate Spangle: Yeah.
Alex Downard: Um, some of her work that she started that, that we can get into some of her program, our programs around education have been studied across the country, um, and is truly one of the best examples in mentors in my life of a leader, uh, who leans in even when the future's unknown.
Right.
Nate Spangle: Dude, that's so cool. Well, let's talk about some of those programs. Obviously, you know, the LA growing lights, you talk about, you know, the trail that you know was private public, you know, like putting that whole thing together. And then the internship program. What are some of the other ways and, and organizations you're collaborating with, uh, from the Community Foundation to make Wabash County a great place to live, to work, to raise a family, and to just be a part of?
Alex Downard: Yeah. We'll start, we'll, we'll do education and housing, and we'll go into the weeds first in education. Right? Because I think those are probably two, the two of the most important things, uh, that rural communities are working to tackle.
Nate Spangle: Yeah.
Alex Downard: So in education specifically, the Community Foundation has done a lot of work in early childhood in an adult education, but we'll dive into the weeds of a program that we just earn our 10th school year called the Imagine Early Program.
And so Imagine Early is truly studied by, from its inception, has been studied by the University of Michigan, and that was possible to, to help start the program. We received a grant, the Community Foundation received a grant from the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. Charles Mott was a founder of General Motors, and so his foundation.
Granted to this little concept of a program in Wabash, Indiana that is now branded. Imagine Early and what it is, it's an early award scholarship program, a child savings account program where students earn scholarships. Not in the 12th grade, traditionally when a high school student would apply, but from birth all the way through the 12th grade students through completing their schoolwork, showing up to school, and their parents setting aside their own money to save for college or the trades or anything.
We match that money from the community into a fund for that student to where today and the where the program is, the student can earn over $3,000 to help support whatever they choose to do next after high school. And so that is a commu, uh, program, completely separate from government funding. And truly we've been able to sustain and endow that program, uh, from local resources and attracting outside resources in, uh, because for a rural community to have a program like that where we're truly investing money in our future, right?
When we talk about population, it's not just attracting college students or retaining Manchester University College students, but it's investing in our young people so that they feel Wabash County Yeah. Is a place to stay.
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I dunno if you complete the third grade, it's like, here's your $150 scholarship or whatever.
Alex Downard: Yeah. So it's through truly, I mean, every grade has its own incentive, right? And, and the different incentives that, that students can earn money while they go through school. And so there's a, there's attendance every year that goes to it.
There's math, there's reading proficiency, there's completing an internship that will roll out this year in high school. That all of those activities earn you money from the community. The community truly investing that money that's invested with the rest of our assets so that it's growing until that student graduates and decides what they're gonna do after high school.
Nate Spangle: No way. All right. I'm like looking into this now. So imagine early, early award scholarships. So it's a program designed to transform everyday schoolwork into opportunities. Students in grades four through eight to imagine, which we've
Alex Downard: built out now. So we've been able to expand it from birth through 12.
Nate Spangle: Birth through 12, yeah. To earn up to $3,000. And it's like, you have to think too, if you're in a 529, it's like the a hundred dollars that you get when you're birth, that's like gonna have some compounding interest over the time. That's exactly right. Right.
Alex Downard: And as pa, if parent part of our program, students can earn bonus money from us if their parent is also saving.
So if the parent opens a 529, we will match that in the investment that we hold for that student along with the rest of the resources
Nate Spangle: that they are. No, and you have like activities like paying taxes or taxes or budgeting or in the kitchen cost of college. Like by going in and you know, learning about these different things.
That helps them. That's really, really cool. So there's probably, how many years has this been going?
Alex Downard: 10. We're in our 10th school year.
Nate Spangle: So do you have, like what's the, is there someone who started 10 years ago that like is set to go off to college now that
Alex Downard: has persisted to college? Yeah, so we had our first class that had the initial programs, five years of intervention was the graduating class of 2025.
And so the students that would've chose to go into the trades or go into college, uh, this past year, and so the University of Michigan studied the program from its inception and so has been able to follow these students and will continue to follow these students to see their persistence through graduating from college.
And so because of that research we've been able to see how students, it's not just about students building money and building assets, right? It's the perception about their future and perception about building assets where the magic is made for the program.
Nate Spangle: And like, I mean this is as momentum's already building, uh, whenever this was updated, like you had 60% of the county.
Of, of children were involved in this program.
Alex Downard: It's a hundred percent free to enroll in the program. Right. And so it's open to all students. And so right now it's just making tweaks and refining the program to just to continue to build on it. Um, because whose idea
Nate Spangle: was this?
Alex Downard: So Patty Grant, my predecessor started the program, uh, 10 years ago.
Nate Spangle: No
Alex Downard: way. And another member of our team, Julie Garber today, who's our vice
Nate Spangle: president and like, okay, let's think about like, what was the initial investment that you had to be raised to endow this program to continue?
Alex Downard: We just recently, this past year have been able to endow the program. Yeah. Before that it was, it was huge.
Our community stepped up through a campaign of the community foundation to raise $4 million. 2 million of that went to our work in early childhood and an additional 2 million went to the Imagine Early Program. And so that paired with the Mott Foundation funding, uh, which was around a million dollars, I believe total, since it's our inception with the Mott Foundation, um, it's truly our community has stepped up.
But in order to endow it, the most exciting part was the research that the University of Michigan did as well as our community's generosity. Allowing this program to get to 10 years attracted the attention from a national group advisory group that was working with an anonymous donor that was wanting to sunset their family foundation and they left $2 million, a one time, $2 million grant.
Two, the Imagine Early Program, we'll never know who that donor was, but that gift paired with an existing fund and a local donor, uh, has allowed us to truly have almost $7 million endowed to support the Imagine Early program for generations to come.
Nate Spangle: That is so cool. Like, I don't know, I just think that's like so innovative and the fact that, you know, I mean, how many graduates come out of how many high schools are in Wabash County?
Alex Downard: We have four high schools, three school corporations. So we talk about partnership. Four high schools. This program wouldn't be
Nate Spangle: possible, say four high schools, three school corporations,
Alex Downard: correct.
Nate Spangle: What are the, what are the high schools?
Alex Downard: So we have Manchester High School, it's its own corporation, Wabash City Schools own corporation.
And then we have Northfield and Southwood that are both MSD of Wabash.
Nate Spangle: Ah, yes. Northfield Southwood. You can't forget about them. Okay. And so, you know, if any given year, those are all like one and two or two A schools. Uh, what's Wabash?
Alex Downard: Yeah, we're about 350 students total that graduate in the county every
Nate Spangle: year.
Okay. 350 seniors. And you think 60 plus percent of them are getting, I mean, could be up to $3,000 plus some compounding interest, like that's not nothing.
Alex Downard: Oh, no, no. It's, it's significant. And the whole idea, right, is that that money we know isn't gonna likely pay, we know it's not gonna pay for somebody's full college experience, but it can be used on textbooks, technology tools if it's somebody going into the trades.
Yeah. Right. And so it's not just about. The money that's there. But it's from an early age shifting the perception of students. Students that are enrolled in Imagine Early, perform better on standardized test scores, have higher attendance, all of those things that are just compounding what the school and, and wouldn't be possible without what the schools are doing.
Right. Huge partner.
Nate Spangle: So, so you have, imagine early education. Are there other initiatives you saw, you've been talking about early. Early childhood. Early
Alex Downard: childhood education. Yeah.
Nate Spangle: What are you guys doing there?
Alex Downard: And so we have both school-based programs and community-based programs in early childhood. And so we have, we formed what's called the First Five Alliance.
And so it's a collaboration of five childcare facilities that have some shared services, some back office, some training, things that we underwrite at the community foundation. And then we provide operating grants to the childcare facilities to help keep down the cost of childcare that's passed on to students and families.
But as everybody know, that's listening to this podcast, there's no silver bullet for early childhood. And so the state of Indiana and other communities across the country, we continue to look into how we'll support early childhood long term because the state and the federal government funding changes have a huge impact to our early childhood, early C childcare providers.
Nate Spangle: And this can be a huge detriment for, if you think of like. Jobs that don't have flexible schedules. Jobs are, you have to be, you know, in the factory at seven o'clock in the morning and you have to stay till three or 4:00 PM like that childcare perspective and lack of flexibility can be, um, a huge barrier for families, especially in rural Indiana.
Alex Downard: Absolutely. And especially when we're heavy manufacturing.
Nate Spangle: Yeah. Like
Alex Downard: a lot of rural Indiana is
Nate Spangle: Okay. Let's talk through some of these other initiatives that you guys have really had to push forward. So Education One, housing, I talk to a lot of people all across Indiana. Housing seems to be a constant problem because it's, again, I've said this a dozen times in the podcast, the chicken or the egg, are you going to, like, companies, private sector will not invest into communities that don't have the housing to support the workers that they need.
And on the housing side, it's like developers aren't gonna build houses where there's not a need for new homes today. Yeah. How do you guys balance that and how do you get projects rocking and rolling?
Alex Downard: Yeah. And, and by no means am, am I claiming that we have the silver bullet to any of these things, right?
Yeah. But what, where we try, what we try to do is build the plane while we're flying it and just make tweaks and refine it as we go. Right. And so our work in the housing space, uh, back in 2024 through our Imagine One 85 work, and in partnership with the Community Foundation, we formed a nonprofit real estate entity called the Wabash County Development Corporation.
With an 11 member board, CEOs, business people, real estate, local folks, all make up the board of directors for that organization. The community foundation provides the staff for the Wabash County Development Corporation. And really we created that entity because we realized there were gaps in the housing space.
Yeah. Right. And we needed a vehicle, the community foundation. Wasn't in the business of owning real estate or developing real estate. Uh, and neither were any of the other nonprofit organizations in the county. And so the mission of the Wabash County Development Corporation is to set the table better for private investment in, in the housing space and make it more attractive or to, to play, develop, or on projects that don't make sense or that require a nonprofit to develop real estate.
Yeah. Right.
Nate Spangle: Okay. So what were a few of the first projects that you guys did together?
Alex Downard: So we launched the Neighborhood Stabilization Initiative, which we, from the IHCDA, the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority. Their data says that there's 1100 vacant housing units across Wabash County.
Nate Spangle: Oh, wow.
Alex Downard: 1100. And so the idea of the Neighborhood Stabilization initiative was to secure these vacant properties, try and find a local developer to take them on, renovate 'em either into a rental or a for sale product. Um, and then in properties that we couldn't move, the Development Corporation closes on it, renovates it and sells it.
So neighborhood civilization all geared around creating a housing and attainable price point. We're talking from 1 25 to 250,000 for purchase options in this initiative. Um, and so when we, everybody knows the cost of new construction, the impact that's had on the housing space, and even more so in rural communities, when we look at why people don't invest at the rate in rural communities that they do in big cities, it's because large part construction costs the same no matter where you're doing it in Indiana.
And but the difference is, is that in Fort Wayne or in Indianapolis, fishers, Carmel, you can sell the same house for a hundred thousand more than you could Yeah. In Wabash County, Indiana.
Nate Spangle: So your upside is. Is significantly less, but your cost to develop and, and make that is the same.
Alex Downard: Absolutely. With, with the larger risk, right?
Yeah. It's a bigger risk to invest in rural communities, which is why we, we created this entity, right, was to work with private developers, but still be able to accomplish projects and take projects on that weren't attractive to a private sector individual.
Nate Spangle: Okay. So of those 1100 vacant properties within Wabash County, how many, you know, in the first couple years were able to get renovated?
Alex Downard: Yeah, so right now we are in the middle of four renovation projects. We've moved nine, uh, to private developers locally to take on the renovations of, and then we've completed and sold two properties. Uh, the first was, I think the very first one we did. We sold in under 48 hours to a buyer from Illinois. Uh, wife works in the school system, husband works at Manchester University.
Um, and so it was just proof of concept that now in the last six months has allowed us to scale, to have multiple renovations going on at the same time.
Nate Spangle: Wow. And are these like, uh, a lot of developers from out of Wabash County or they're developers from within Wabash County
Alex Downard: so far? These are local people through that initiative that have taken
Nate Spangle: those nine on.
Okay. So, you know, so, so-and-so's restoration, you know, like does home remodels and flips and things like that within the county. They're working with you guys to renovate this and create new housing opportunities for people in the county.
Alex Downard: Yep, absolutely.
Nate Spangle: That's super cool.
Alex Downard: Absolutely.
Nate Spangle: And is that mostly residential or have you guys worked in on any of like the, the commercial side of things?
Alex Downard: Not on the commercial side only. Uh, another kind of lane of the Wabash County development corporations focus is downtown redevelopment.
Nate Spangle: Yeah.
Alex Downard: And so
Nate Spangle: have you, uh, have you read Eric Doden's book?
Alex Downard: Yep, absolutely.
Nate Spangle: Yeah. This is fascinating and I don't know if I've talked about it recently on the show, but.
Lingle. Scott Lingle in introduced me to Eric Doden. He's outta Fort Wayne real estate guy, but what they did in Van Wert, Ohio and this like wholesaling of rural real estate projects where yeah, it isn't one building in Wabash County, not. Not attractive to a big time developer to buildings, not attractive.
But when you start to really think of this bigger comprehensive plan this book goes into of how they're like doing, it's gotta be a $50 million deal or whatever. And like sometimes it's not realistic, but the right leaders get their hands on that. It starts to get the wheels turning to think a little bit bigger.
Alex Downard: Yeah. And I, I would say that's what Eric has done for Wabash County. Right. Uh, I respect Eric a lot for his approach and his vision and, and how bold Eric is. Um, but to your point, that's not always a reality to do a $50 million project all at one time. Um, and maybe we'll get there someday, but, uh, in Wabash County, it really started us in our conversations with Eric down a path of there are, the reality is there are projects that if we, and it's a big general, we Right.
The community doesn't pull together to fix these. No one else is coming to save our problem. Right? Yes. And downtown is so critical to a rural community, any community, but definitely in rural America. A vibrant downtown that has a buzz to it, uh, is so important to the community's vitality.
Nate Spangle: Yeah, absolutely.
And I think one of the communities that they're working in is like Richmond, Indiana
Alex Downard: in close partnership with the Community Foundation in Wayne County. Absolutely.
Nate Spangle: Yeah. And Wayne County, for instance, is 66,000 people and the town of Richmond is over 30,000. So like putting together, I mean that's the whole size of Wabash County and you think, you know, somewhere like Wabash is one third of that.
It's tough to like, uh, you know, make that math, math, but it got you guys started on this. So what are the, the downtown developments you guys have been working on?
Alex Downard: So right now we've explored a variety of buildings in North Manchester and in Wabash, but are really getting into our first phase that is still, uh, not concrete yet of what buildings, how many square feet, how many apartments, commercial space is, but in close partnership with the Honeywell Center, uh, and other partner.
It to your earlier question, right, Nate? It takes. Everybody rowing in the same direction to, to pull these projects off. And, and so we're excited, uh, in the next couple years to see some of these downtown renovation projects with Honeywell as a close partner come to fruition.
Nate Spangle: When, when you think of rural Indiana and you think of what makes small towns attractive, like when it comes to quality of life, what are the staples that every small town community needs to be thinking about when, you know, marketing their quality of place?
Alex Downard: Uh, we work a lot with an architect out of Fort Wayne that's done a ton of work across Wabash County, and he really goes deeper than just drawing buildings right on a piece of paper. But he talks about third spaces, how important these third spaces are within communities. And a third space is somewhere where you go to get connected to your neighbors and your community outside of work and outside of home, right?
So that's space one and two. But space three is the local coffee shop. The local restaurant on the river that everybody knows on a Friday night that that's where they're gonna go to listen to karaoke or sing karaoke. It's the Honeywell Center. Right. It's, it's places in your community that you can go to be around other folks and build up that community spirit, that connection, uh, to, to the place you call home.
Nate Spangle: Yeah. Okay. So what are the third spaces or around Wabash County that are just rocking and rolling?
Alex Downard: So we're the Honeywell Center, like we've talked about.
Nate Spangle: Yeah.
Alex Downard: And then Eagles Theater, which Honeywell owns and operates. They also have a variety of other properties. But the Honeywell Center is an anchor in downtown Wabash.
Yeah. So we, we talk about all the restaurants, coffee shops, the other third spaces that have spun off because Thursday through Saturday, wa Honeywell's bringing in 80% of their ticket buyers are from outside of Wabash County.
Nate Spangle: Wow.
Alex Downard: And so that helps some of these businesses sustain their normal local traffic.
Yeah. Um, when Honeywell's driving that amount of people into our community, we talk about the 950 Speakeasy at the other end of the trail, six miles. Right. Um, is is one of those spaces, I would say the trail itself, right? The, the amount of people that, that are on the trail along the Wabash River, kayaking, the Wabash River, all of these experiences because of our natural amenities are also third spaces.
Nate Spangle: That's really interesting. I think a lot of times, you know, smaller communities are like, okay, we just bring in a brewery and all of our problems are solved. I think I said that in the lingo episode and it's, it's like, that's a portion of it, but it's also like getting. This community feel to not just talk about how it's a small town and we all have each other's back, but to be about it.
Like go out and spend your dollars with the local places, go out and, you know, spend Thursday nights listening to live music or eating dinner somewhere, or walking the trail or kayaking or whatever it is. Like how do you guys. Uh, promote and encourage your local residents to get out and be the best possible community members they can be.
Alex Downard: Yeah, we're extremely fortunate to have Visit Wabash County, who's our Tourism and Visitors Bureau, which I would guess every county in Indiana has some former fashion of that. I will say that Christine Flohr and her team at Visit Wabash County have really leaned into what I call our chief marketing agency for Wabash County.
They tell our story. Not just to attract visitors. Her, her famous line is it all starts with a visit, right? And so while uh, we're trying to attract tourism, 'cause that's where future residents come from, she truly does a great job of highlighting, cultivating experiences and telling the story of those different amenities, whether it's the spaces or the businesses, or it's those outdoor amenities.
Um, and they're cultivating these experiences that draw people from all over to come and experience Wabash.
Nate Spangle: How do you balance all of the different initiatives that are going on from housing to commercial development to education to, I mean, we haven't even talked about like the philanthropy and the charitable part, so this is something to realize and I get feedback for this a lot.
Like nowhere in Indiana and nowhere in America is perfect. There's no utopian society where people don't have struggles and challenges that are facing disagreements, facing disagreements. Like, you know, it's, it's unrealistic to think that everywhere in the world is Mayberry. Right. And so, you know, you think about, oh gosh, whether it be unemployment or low income, or just these different challenges, how are you guys coming together to solve some of those problems to help out your local community members?
Alex Downard: Yeah, Nate, the, the word that comes to mind for Wabash County's legacy, right? We think about the history of innovation, the history of stewardship and generosity, the history of collaboration. Those of us that are, that are rowing in the same direction today. We're not the first to be doing that. Right. In our, in our community and in Wabash County.
And to your point, it is not all sunshine and roses, uh, in our community, no different than other places. Right. We've had the renewable energy disagreements, we've had the school consolidation disagreements, all of these kind of hot button topics that rural communities are facing across the country. We've gone through those things and, and are always out the other side.
Um, and I truly believe the hard part today, and you know this, but 90% of the things that rural communities are working on, generally most residents would agree with. Yeah. But the problem is the 10% that we don't get 90% of the attention. Yeah. Right. From local media. From other media. And so we've just really tried to work in, in the three words for us, right.
Are stewardship, innovation, and collaboration. Yeah. Right. If we stick to those values, truly approach our work every day, we're just the people in the shoes today that are doing this work. The people before us set the precedent and, and that's our role just to make sure that this can continue forward.
Nate Spangle: When you think about the average resident of Wabash County, like. And let's say they may, they may not be a community leader, they may not be, you know, uh, someone with a, a really big position or title. What are the challenges that they're facing? Like what are the challenges? If you put yourself in the shoes of, you know, the average 30-year-old in Wabash County that probably has a family, what are they worried about?
Alex Downard: I would say they're worried about a lot of the same things. They wanna live in a safe community. Yeah. Right. And, and hopefully we pride ourselves. We have a lot of other issues Right. That, that small rural communities face when it comes to safety. But, but. In incredibly safe community. Yeah. Right. They're worried about education.
They wanna make sure that their kids have a quality experience to education, uh, from the time that they're born with early childhood, all the way through, through school. Right. A lot of our residents, I think about some of my neighbors in Lagro, right? We have, I have some of my neighbors that have never graduated from high school before.
Uh, but what are those resources that we can plug them into to get their GED, right? Yeah. And continue to climb and, and earn more money at whatever role or drop they have within the community.
Nate Spangle: What are some of the issues that you see and some of the challenges that you're like, Hey, we can solve this.
Like we could solve getting everyone in Wabash County. Their GED or high school diploma equivalency, like, like it would be hard and it would take some buy-in on, you know, their sides. Like you can, you can't do it all for them, but like with a budget and some initiative, like that's something that's solvable or, I mean, we just had, and I know there's a partnership here that I want to talk about.
Uh, we just had Casey Kraus on
Alex Downard: Oh yeah.
Nate Spangle: Um, from New Shoe Day and he talked about doing some work with you guys
Alex Downard: on, on the New Shoe Day partnership, the Imagine Early Program. Right. We talked about that and we were sitting around our table and, and thinking, how are we going to get students excited about the program, reengage students and get them excited?
So what's exciting to a fourth grader Right. Or to a fifth grader. Uh, but then we were thinking, how are we gonna continue to try and get more students enrolled in the program? One of the things, through the University of Michigan's research, we know that the impacts of our program are. Especially effective on low income students and low income families.
And so right around the same time we were sitting around the table thinking through what that might look like for Imagine Early Casey Kraus reaches out. Definitely a God thing. Right? Sends me a note out of the blue. Casey and I went through the Mitch Daniels leadership program together. Yeah. And, and Casey said, Hey man, just want to connect.
Right? And it was at that moment with my team that we jumped on a Zoom with Casey and said, Hey Casey, we, I know what you're doing at New Shoe Day. Talk to us a little bit more about that. But what, what does it look like if we put every Imagine Early Student, do an enrollment campaign, enrollment push, but by a deadline if we put every Imagine Early student in a free brand new pair of shoes, right?
We know that there's a lot of families, low income students and low income families that that may attract them to the program. And if that's what gets them in the door, yeah. But it opens up to the $3,000 that students can earn. Um, but at the very least, students get excited
Nate Spangle: and it's a great idea. So putting a new pair of shoes on a kid, one.
Uh, like it or not, the idea of, you know, in 10 years your college fund is gonna be at 3000. Like, that's great for future me, but today it's like giving me your grand. My grandma, my great grandma, used to buy me savings bonds for Christmas, and it was like, in seven years this will be $50. And it's like, well, thanks grandma, but I can't buy any candy with that today.
And it's like, Hey, you're getting one. This thing that a lot of, you know, especially low income, having this new pair of shoes that's in a box, that you know, that, that sense of pride and fulfillment. You get that today and in 10 years or three years or five years or whatever that number is, you're gonna have this other piece from the Imagine Early Program.
It does seem like a real, like a match made in heaven there.
Alex Downard: Yeah, absolutely. And, and it was record enrollment for us as a part of the program, put almost a thousand students. 'cause we wanted specific grade levels of Imagine Early students, but we put almost a thousand students in a free brand new pair of Under Armour shoes.
Uh, received all types of stories and messages. We had a local bus driver for one of our school corporations reached out and just shared a story of what a student coming onto the bus shared with their brand new pair of shoes and how excited they were to show her that pair of shoes. But then also just mentioned what that student's home life might be like or, or what it was like when they're dropping that student off every morning or picking that student up.
Yeah. And just the confidence that that student had. Right. That's Casey's whole thing for the new shoe day. Right. Stepping into their future with confidence. Yeah. And the impact. Of what new shoes can do, aligned really well with Imagine Early,
Nate Spangle: and that's something where you talk about coming from a place like Indianapolis, the problems aren't that different.
You know, the problem, like they are, there's some different ones that rural Indiana faces, but the idea of like children having, you know, clothing, housing, safety, security, all that stuff. So important. And when you get to a place like Wabash County with 30,000 residents, and if you, you know, I don't know, divide that by whatever you think.
How many children are there? How many kids under 18 are there in Wabash County?
Alex Downard: Oh man. You're testing
Nate Spangle: like less than 10,000, right? Oh, right, right. Like less than there are less than 10,000 kids. It's like if we all row in the same direction you could in the next decade or two decades, like make it the best place for children in, in the world.
In Indiana, you know,
Alex Downard: we talk about opportunity for impact in rural counties, right? You asked what attracted me to stay in, in a rural community. Think about. Yes, there's the opportunity to get involved and make an impact, but because we're not in a big city of hundreds of thousands of people or millions of people, there's little actions that we can take that have huge impact on, on the scale, because we're not doing things that impact tens of thousands of residents.
Right. We're talking a county of 30,000 people, that it's manageable, right? We can wrap our arms around it. And that paired with the generosity in the county, the, the possibilities have been endless.
Nate Spangle: Are our, I wouldn't, I don't wanna talk about that, right? You think there's 92 counties in Indiana and you know, some of them have done a great job of bringing youth and vibrance and forward progress and other places have had a difficulty.
And a lot of that comes from, you know, local leaders re-imagining things and local leaders, you know, being innovative and, you know, maybe, I don't wanna say taking risks, but like, you know, championing forward new initiatives. And some of them will listen to this and there'll be mayors and there'll be community leaders and different people across the, uh, rural Indiana.
If you were picked up today and planted in southern Indiana, let's say the middle of, oh, any of the, let's say Orange County, right? You're, you're down in Orange County, Southern Indiana, and they do a great job. They have a lot of stuff down there. So actually we're gonna say an unnamed county, you were just picked up and planted somewhere new and said, Hey, we have these similar issues to rural Indiana.
What would you start to do to think innovatively and attract more people, inspire locals, and increase the quality of life in rural Indiana?
Alex Downard: I'll, I'll just lean back on the three values that, that we try and hold at the Community Foundation and in Wabash County, right? Stewardship, collaboration, innovation, all of those three things in order for, to achieve any type of innovation or momentum in the community.
A, a mentor of mine when I graduated from Manchester University taught me the value of, and everybody talks about relationships, right? Business about relationships. I was fortunate, my first job outta college, being in business development, every meeting I walked away from, I walked away with three people to go meet next.
Right? And then I left those meetings with three more people. And, and that's what's so special about Wabash County, Northeast Indiana. And really, I believe the state of Indiana is that people are willing to make those connections and invest in the next generation and of young people. Uh, and that was huge for me in my career, but I believe is at the true base and foundation of effective work, right?
And so if I was picked up and dropped off somewhere else, the first thing you have to do to build collaboration, have innovation, anything like that, is you have to have relationships. And that's not something in rural Indiana you can fake. Yeah. But having the relationship equity to pull the right people around the table, get them to say yes and lean in to this broader vision is important.
Nate Spangle: And I think that it starts, uh, I have to assume if you're the headline employer in rural Indiana. You know, the softball team, the baseball team, the football team, the band, the boosters, the this, that everyone's coming and it's transactional. They're like, will you sponsor our thing? Will you write us a check?
You're made of money. Sponsor this thing. And I think that if you're gonna be a real community leader, is you need to go in there and build some non-transactional relationships and then figure out what the leadership or what the decision makers within X, Y, Z employer, what they're work worried about, what their, what kind of impact do they want to make.
You know, let's say you have an executive team at a, the one of the major employers in your county and you know, you start to chat with them and they're like, yeah, I can't believe that, you know, kids in our community don't have enough shoes. And then you go out and find the innovative solutions. Maybe you get some other community partners involved and you bring together this like, hey.
What if there was this organization that we knew about that could help us inspire confidence as our students step into their future and you bring that to them versus, Hey, I just, I need $10,000 for this, you know, this general thing today, like getting bought in on what kind of impact and the legacy they wanna leave.
I think that not thinking about it in a transactional way is super important.
Alex Downard: No, absolutely. And, and what I would guess that that major employer, I, I think I'm thinking of ours, right? Yeah. And the leaders in our community, and so down in Southern Indiana or anywhere else, they want that community in order for their business to be successful and ultimately them to be successful, they have to have employees, right?
And they have to have employees that are healthy, that, that are focused while they're at work. And so, truly, to your point, for it not to be a transaction. What is important to them? What are they hearing from their employees and how do we tackle that? Right? And so the engagement process of comprehensive planning, there's engagement fatigue ever.
Lily requires planning a lot of times for their grants, other grant requirements to do the same thing. And so a lot of people think that's just a check of a box. Yeah. But what's been effective for us in Wabash County is let's, for the solutions, when we're hearing the problem, let's hear that from our residents or from our stakeholders, develop a solution and it'll be a heck of a lot easier to get people to buy into that solution.
Nate Spangle: Yeah. And I think that momentum is contagious. So you think about a $7,000 project of the Lagro Hollywood Lights, like you could probably find a private individual to write the check for that. Like, and if you're a leader in the community and you can't find a $7,000 like. Again, like do some, do some, uh, introspection there of like how you could make that happen.
Because yes, the Lagro sign, it might not be the biggest, you know, most fancy project, but it makes a huge impact and you start to build more credibility and you start to be like, Hey, we're people who get stuff done and your $7,000 project turns into a $70,000 project turns into a $700,000 project that gets you to a 7 million project.
A $7 million endowed, uh, or uh, yeah, program that like helps with education, but you have to build momentum. And I think that's the other thing community members get very annoyed with where it's like lot of talk, not a lot of action and it's like, I don't know, you drive down, is it 24? Yeah, you drive down 24, you're a local resident.
Like that's $7,000 that people see every day, every week as they're driving through. That makes them proud to be in this community, proud to be a part of Wabash County. So I think getting the ball rolling on momentum. And not just trying to go after this huge, like, we gotta raise $7 million to do this big thing on day one.
And it's like, I mean, this work started 10 years ago. Like to get that to a point where it's now a 10 year program that can be endowed at $7 million. Like you had to start that with just a few students and a couple nickels back 10 years ago.
Alex Downard: Yeah. We, we, a lot of our community leaders, our team at the community foundation and most leaders in communities today, right, and this is very general, but it's the most simple thing.
Our job every day is to identify a concept, a problem, develop a concept for a solution, move that along to where all it's missing is money, right? So through due diligence, through design, cost, estimate, all these things, identify resources for that project, secure the resources, implement the project.
Nate Spangle: Okay.
What are interesting local funding opportunity, or maybe not even local, but what are, what are funding? Sources that people should be thinking about if you are a community leader in rural Indiana?
Alex Downard: Yeah.
Nate Spangle: Like obviously, like everyone talks about the Lilly Endowment and we're actually, I'm working on doing an episode with them, I think would be super impactful to the state of Indiana.
Absolutely. Um, but like you do, you can't just like, you know, submit a random thing and they're just gonna write you a check. Like it takes a little bit more of a process and you know, an application in the whole nine yards there. But what are these, um, funding sources that people in rural Indiana can be leaning into?
Alex Downard: Yeah. I'll give you a very specific example in a story that they started in 2015. Yeah. The town of North Manchester received an office of community rural affairs OCRA planning grant to develop a downtown plan. The number one project in that downtown plan was a riverfront park riverfront development in downtown North Manchester.
20 18, 20 19. Imagine One 85 countywide comprehensive planning process is starting. We still don't have a park in downtown North Manchester. And so what is the top priority from residents in Imagine One 85 a downtown Riverfront Park in North Manchester. So through those two planning efforts, right, with Imagine One 85, and Lilly supported the planning effort and and founding of Imagine One 85, right?
We've now identified this project, local resources, local people start to get behind the project building this momentum. And then the Lilly Endowment announces the College and Community Collaboration Initiative, right? And so we're able to partner with Manchester University. And because of all of that engagement work and prioritization and local buy-in about this project, we have a great foundation to turn around an application to Lilly that allowed us to secure $12.1 million total.
But specifically, there's a $10 million with local match Riverfront Park called Hill River Commons that will break ground this year in the town of North Manchester. So we're talking 11 years later. Before we had the funding and, and still we're trying to get even more funding to make that park better.
Right. And that project move forward to where now in 27, 20 28, the residents North Manchester will have this $10 million park and downtown North Manchester, because we identified a concept from engagement, moved it along to where all it was missing was money, identified an opportunity, secured the funding, and now we're an implementation.
Nate Spangle: Yeah. College town's got a ton of love from this college and c like the four C's or whatever it was,
right?
Alex Downard: Yeah. The College Community Collaboration Initiative.
Nate Spangle: Yeah. College community. Yes, exactly that. And I mean, I, we've talked to. Oh my goodness. We were in Muncie talking with the mayor and the president of Ball State.
We've had the presidents of Wabash and DePauw on talking about Crawfordsville, talking about, you know, Greencastle. I mean, I think Butler has a, like, I think almost every college town in Indiana, like would've been silly not to take advantage of, of this, uh, funding source.
Alex Downard: Yeah. 18 or 19 were funded
Nate Spangle: and I don't even know how many, how many, uh, colleges.
I
Alex Downard: think there were 30 some that were eligible.
Nate Spangle: Like that's pretty cool. Yeah. That's a huge impact. Uh, when you think of other creative funding sources across the state that people, that these rural communities should be leaning into, like what are the organizations, what are the funding sources or the creative ways they've like crowdsourced maybe from local residents?
Alex Downard: Yeah, I mean, they're the most. What I'll call simple, low hanging fruit, uh, Patronicity through the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority is a crowdfunding platform where local people can jump on for $5, $10 and support a local project. You raise $50,000, you get $50,000.
Nate Spangle: Yeah. We used that for, uh, when we did, uh, I'm from Bourbon.
We did like a whole Bourbon for bourbon campaign where we did, uh, if you hit a certain level of donation, you got, uh, gifted, like a bottle of, of uh, like ultra rare bourbon that we partnered with, uh, rare Saint, which is St. Elmo's Distillery. Yeah. And it was like we generated like $37,000. Right. Or $27,000 in, you know, a couple weeks for through Pa Patron
Alex Downard: Patronicity
Nate Spangle: Patronicity.
Alex Downard: Yeah. And the, the dollars are helpful, right? Just obviously to support whatever project, but that local buy-in and, and people having ownership of being a part of a project is more powerful, right? Yes. And so I joke with our community that I feel like sometimes we're the cap or the patronicity capital of Indiana with all the different Patronicity campaigns we've had, but the most unique our, our local Main Street and Chamber Chamber in North Manchester, Manchester Alive.
Went through a patronicity campaign, sold at their office, bought this old vacant downtown building and renovated the first floor to truly be a mini mall concept to when you walk in, there's eight individual storefronts. They're the tenant, right? So they're managing all of these small businesses that have started maybe downsized, but maintained a downtown presence, wanted to dip their toe into the market in North Manchester.
And it's completely full. And it's been completely full. Right? Unique businesses, a barber haircut place, financial advisor shops, uh, all different types of things, right?
Nate Spangle: That would've been great for, uh, Janssen when he was starting.
Alex Downard: Yep,
Nate Spangle: absolutely. Uh, with Chills. We had, we did an episode with him. If anyone remembers, like, this is one of the quickly become like biggest attractions, I would say, in Wabash County.
Obviously, you know, the Honeywell Center, but people travel from all across the country to get ice cream in North Manchester at Chills. Like it's wild what the like viral fandom that Janssen has built?
Alex Downard: Yeah. Through TikTok social media, right?
Nate Spangle: Yeah. Through
Alex Downard: social
Nate Spangle: media and like, I feel like locals are probably, oh, that's just like the ice cream joint.
And then you see someone that drives like 12 hours to get his ice cream and he's just the best dude, like genuine, great person. And he has opened his second location, I think in Fort Wayne, which is sick.
Alex Downard: Yeah. Roanoke. Yeah.
Nate Spangle: Yeah. Oh, Roan
Alex Downard: just outside of Fort Wayne and Roanoke, I believe.
Nate Spangle: Oh, wow. That's, that sounds,
Alex Downard: maybe I'm wrong.
Maybe it is Fort Wayne.
Nate Spangle: Um, so, so cool. Okay. Um, do you have final advice for rural community leaders on how they can start to take steps forward to building the best possible community?
Alex Downard: I, I would say don't get caught up in, in the disagreements, right? Those, the don't get caught up in the 10%. Right. Get the 90% of things you agree on.
Use that right. And inject energy. Uh, again, stewardship, collaboration, innovation, um, taking the role of. It's not about me. Right. Setting ego aside for a second and realizing that there were people before you in your community, and there'll be people after you and you have been tasked with the leadership role to steward whatever it is for folks, right?
And so that, that kind of stewardship approach to be at the root of everything working with residents, engaging residents at a deep level. And, and it sounds surface level, but it's truly important to all of those different funding opportunities or to make a project, get buy in on a project and then think outside the box in innovation, right?
Yeah. Doing more with less, um, because that's what we're all doing every single day in rural communities, is trying to do more things, whether it's state funding, cuts, wherever else with less resources,
Nate Spangle: doing more with less. I love that. When you think about the headlines in Wabash County in 20 years, in 2046, what do you hope people across the state of Indiana are reading about Wabash, Indiana in 2046,
Alex Downard: the leading rural county in the state, right.
When, when I get asked all the time, well, we don't want to grow, we don't want this progress. We don't wanna be these big places. In us either, right? We wanna be known as the the place people know in rural Indiana for opportunity, right? The people wanna raise their kids and their families in Wabash County because there's a lot to do for a rural community of our size, and there's a lot of opportunity for young people.
Nate Spangle: I love that, man. This has been so fun. Very enlightening. We've come to the final portion of the show where we get to talk all things Indiana. So this question is brought to you by our friends at J.C. Hart. They're a leader in creating enjoyable living experiences at apartment communities all across Indiana and beyond.
Check them out at homeisjchart.com. My question for you, Alex, why do you call Indiana home?
Alex Downard: I think it goes back to when I talked early in my career about how people in Indiana, Northeast Indiana, Wabash County. We are open to supporting the next generation of leaders. Right. And you've talked about that on this podcast, but truly, I believe every day we invest in our young people, right?
We pour into our young people, whether it's advice, whether it's connections, relationships. I think that's special to Indiana.
Nate Spangle: Who leads visit Wabash County.
Alex Downard: Christine Flohr.
Nate Spangle: Christine says it starts with a visit.
Alex Downard: Yep.
Nate Spangle: Starts with a, so if someone were planning a visit to Wabash County for a weekend, what's the itinerary?
Alex Downard: So definitely a show at the Honeywell Center, right? That's extremely important. I would say kayaking down the river or hiking through Salamonie If you're a kayaker, you prefer hiking, uh, and checking out the Wabash River Trail. Um, and then truly my favorite go-to spot is in, is in the town that I live in, right?
The 950 Speakeasy. Uh, live music every weekend. Karaoke every weekend. Just a great spot right on the Wabash River.
Nate Spangle: Heck yeah. I love, okay, wait, what's like the, where are you getting wake up after an, after a night at the 950 speakeasy? Where are you getting breakfast at?
Alex Downard: Uh, the Firehouse Cafe Station.
One firehouse in Lagro again, another restaurant, right. The old retired fire chief and the old fire station opened up a breakfast spot. That's really good.
Nate Spangle: Oh, that's so cool. And I would say like, people probably don't think of like vacationing or spending a weekend in Wabash County, but with Airbnbs and different things like that and the show at the Honeywell Center, like that could be a pretty, that could be a fun weekend for sure.
Yeah. Uh, getting out. I mean, I love nothing beats like when you're on a kayak, maybe a couple beverages like summer day, come on, sign me up. Well, we're, 'cause we're coming. I've already, we've already made the, the establishment. We're gonna come and spend a weekend or spend a few days up in Wabash County and we're gonna have to learn all the local spots.
Alex Downard: Yeah. And we'll, we'll highlight a lot of the construction projects that we talked about and some we didn't. Right. Yeah. To show you guys firsthand what's going on
Nate Spangle: in the community. Absolutely. You're gonna find us on our journey to 1000 towns across the state of Indiana. You're gonna find us in Wabash County, visiting North Manchester, Wabash, Lagro Fountain,
Alex Downard: Roann, LA
Nate Spangle: Fountain.
Roann, LaFontaine. Spelled like LaFontaine, but pronounced in typical Indiana fashion pronounced LaFontaine.
Alex Downard: Correct.
Nate Spangle: Similarly to Milan. Pronounced Milan. Not Milan. Come on. Alright. What's your favorite Manchester University tradition?
Alex Downard: A lot like how Bloomington and Indiana University has Little five. The little 500.
Uh, Manchester University has May Day Is kind of the weekend with mud volleyball and trike races and all these different things, right? Yeah. Um, but was really a great time and I have a lot of memories from May Day weekend. Uh, from my time with my, still my best friends today, uh, from Manchester University.
Nate Spangle: Heck, I mean, every, every college has their, like we at DePauw, we had our own little five. Purdue has Grand Prix, like everywhere has something where they're racing some sort of thing or there's some sort of competition that it's built around and it's electric. Like no better place to be in the spring than like whatever that weekend is for your college.
If there is a 22-year-old out there listening to this podcast and is trying to figure out where they want to go in life, pitch them. Wabash County,
Alex Downard: truly. I mean, I, I feel like I have been able to sit at tables. I don't belong at work on things I don't have any business working on. I was never the smartest, most athletic, most talented person in college or any room I was ever in.
But I believe Wabash County in rural Indiana has the opportunity to get involved and make an impact and. Right away. Yeah. Right. Even from my time as a student, but definitely right away. And I believe our biggest competitive advantage in Wabash County is our human capital. And then obviously the generosity, uh, to truly have resources to make that impact.
Nate Spangle: Bang. If you are an impact driven 22-year-old and you want to place where you can plug in and start to make an impact right away, Wabash County could be your answer.
Alex Downard: That's right.
Nate Spangle: No own. Alright. These are the same three questions we ask every guest who comes on the show. First, Alex, if you could shout it from the rooftops, all across America, across the globe, everywhere.
What's something the world needs to know about Indiana?
Alex Downard: Broken record. Indiana's a place of opportunity. Oh,
Nate Spangle: amen. Like tons of opportunity. Alright, now this question is your opportunity to shed some light on a part of the state that more people need to know about. What is a hidden gem in Indiana?
Alex Downard: You've gotta come check out the town, town of Lagro.
Nate Spangle: Okay.
Alex Downard: Right. The town of Lagro less than 400 people. The local people bought in, outside people have bought in, uh, a, a community that the trail changed everything, right? Yeah. So people don't think trails are important. Come check out the town of Lagro, uh, we'd love to show you. Other than that, I take a quarterly trip to another small town in Indiana, spend the weekend there.
And my favorite trip so far has been Madison, down in Madison, Indiana.
Nate Spangle: I you take a quarterly trip to another small town in Indiana. Okay. Where all have you been?
Alex Downard: Oh geez. That's I, my top ones that I've been to. Yeah. Yeah. I love Rushville.
Nate Spangle: Oh,
Alex Downard: town of Rushville Small.
Nate Spangle: They have a, that historic old hotel.
Like in downtown Rushville, there's like, they're really well known and that's a place where they were vibrant and thriving in like a bypass, like the interstate, like really cut them off of, of things. So Rushville is interesting. Okay. A
Alex Downard: lot of great local community leaders that are helping Rushville now.
Yeah, Rushville is great. Obviously everybody likes Nashville, Indiana. I think Nashville, Indiana is beautiful and I really enjoy going down there. Yeah. Uh, Madison's fantastic. Um, Auburn, Indiana has a lot going on too. Yeah. That's up in my part of the state.
Nate Spangle: DeKalb. DeKalb County.
Alex Downard: Yep. DeKalb County.
Nate Spangle: Yeah.
We're going up there for the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Festival, like their big Labor day festival. Huge. Wow. So what, what did you love about Madison?
Alex Downard: Uh, stayed in the hotel. That's the old cotton mill right on the river. And I really feel like there's a lot of similarities between downtown Wabash and, and downtown, uh, Madison.
We're both close to a river. Uh, their differences, their river's probably five to 10 times wider than the Wabash River and deeper. Um, so that's a lot of opportunity. But also their main street, it's all on one street and it's probably five times longer than our kind of core, downtown Main street is. Yeah.
Um, and so it was just really neat and, and love all the shops and, and the restaurants and different things in Madison. Yeah, it's beautiful.
Nate Spangle: I'm excited. We're headed down there in April and I'm, I've talked about it, but I haven't been before, so I'm really excited to go down there. We're going to like the mayor's or assistant Mayor's conference, and then I think I'm going back again in July for, uh, regatta.
That is like Madison's thing. That's
Alex Downard: their
Nate Spangle: thing. That's their Super Bowl. The indie, I've not been
Alex Downard: there during, during July.
Nate Spangle: I've, I've heard it's the move. Okay. Finally, this is your chance to, uh, highlight someone else in Indiana and, and give some love to them. So we're identifying new podcast guests or just really inspiring people who's a Hoosier.
We need to keep on our radar, someone who's doing big things
Alex Downard: and, and you all have talked to him, so I'm sorry I can't give you a new guess, but Mayor Chris Jensen in Noblesville, uh. Little bit, obviously a lot different, the city of Noblesville than anything up north and in, in rural communities. But he just had, I, I respect his leadership, his vision, what he's done in Noblesville to truly steward that work forward, uh, in the community.
But also he has such a great understanding of rural communities and some of the challenges that, that rural communities, you can tell he is invested in, in different leaders and he spent time in rural Indiana. Yeah. And so I, I really think a lot of Mayor Chris Jensen, and I'm excited to watch him continue to lead.
Nate Spangle: Everybody loves Mayor Chris Jensen. He is just a vibrant personality. He is awesome. We're actually gonna have him on the show at some point in the next oh, couple months. So stay tuned for that episode. It'll be really fun. Alex, it's been a pleasure learning all about the innovative history and current innovations that are happening in Wabash County.
The way that everyone has come together to be a generous. An innovative population that is just pushing the ball forward of what it means to be at the top of, of rural Indiana. Again, the fact that Wabash is making its circles in the Indianapolis and central Indiana business community and people are talking about all the innovative things happening there, like that is really cool.
And that's obviously, you know, being in conversations doesn't totally move the needle, but it's a start and it gets people thinking, you know, more innovative. And I hope that other local leaders hear this podcast. It creates some more competition for you and like they're gonna be inspired to help drive all of Indiana Ford.
'cause I mean, a rising tide lifts all ships. Like you guys are doing innovative things. And I hope that other leaders that hear this are inspired too, whether they want to have, um, a summer intern program or real estate redevelopment like. We do need to continue to push the ball forward at all levels, and I love that Wabash is, is leading the charge when it comes to community foundation work and, and just stewarding rural Indiana.
So thank you for being a guest. Thank you for your passion that you're putting into Wabash County. And I love the fact that you go to a quarterly new small town. That's incredible, man. Keep up the good work. If people want to a maybe share, uh, or share the internship program with their, their kids, people they know that are looking for innovative internships, where can they do that?
Where can they learn more about Wabash County and where can they find you?
Alex Downard: Yeah, Google Wabash County Fellowship program, and there'll be a link that visit Wabash County does all of our marketing for the program on their website, uh, truly Visit Wabash County has the most information about where to, how to stay in Wabash County at any of our Airbnbs, the hotels, the experiences, um, the ThriveIN Wabash County podcasts.
So we've launched our podcast just highlighting local stories to local people. Yeah. Um, and so they can look up that on all podcast platforms. Um, but truly visit Wabash County's our chief marketing agency on all social media. Uh, you can find the information there.
Nate Spangle: Absolutely. I love it, man. Keep up the good work and we'll talk soon.
Alex Downard: Awesome. Thanks so much, man.
Nate Spangle: This show is made possible by our friends up at Sweetwater. Whether you're looking to start a podcast or take your content to the next level, click the link in the description to see all my gear recommendations at Sweetwater. If you want a behind the scenes look at everything we're doing across the state.
Make sure you follow me on Instagram and TikTok at Nate Spangle. Thank you so much for listening and being a part of what makes the Hoosier State. Great. We'll see you next time here on Get.
