Rural Development

More than 1,300 community developers from 47 states converged on Des Moines, Iowa, this week to attend the 2011 National Main Streets Conference organized by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. A key theme repeated during the conference illustrated how communities with healthy Main Street...

Recently Morton Township, Michigan held the groundbreaking ceremony for its library expansion. Located in the Village of Mecosta on the western side of the Lower Peninsula, the event was a wonderful example of how a rural community can come together to support a project.

Cross posted from the White House blog: Twenty business leaders from Mexico, Missouri, joined me at the Mid America Brick plant recently for the first White House Business Council Roundtable meeting in Missouri. President Obama asked me, along with other senior Administration officials, to...

USDA Rural Development Deputy Under Secretary Cheryl Cook and Thomas Williams, Rural Development Pennsylvania State Director recently conducted a Small Business Council meeting at the Lebanon Valley Chamber of Commerce, followed by a visit to Molnar Farms, a local Rural Energy for America Program...

The state of Mississippi, recently hit with back-to-back disasters in the forms of record-intensity tornadoes in the eastern portion of the state and devastating floods in the Mississippi River Delta, was visited by two USDA under secretaries on Thursday. USDA Under Secretary for Rural Development...

In December of 2009 an apartment building owned by Rodney and Betty Hestekin sustained major damage in a fire. The building had been financed through USDA Rural Development’s Multi-Family Housing program. All 18 tenants living in the building were displaced. Rodney and Betty immediately sprang into...

Agriculture Under Secretary for Rural Development Dallas Tonsager was in Marvell, Arkansas, on Friday to meet with over 150 people that have been affected by recent disasters. Tonsager discussed the assistance that USDA can provide to help residents, farmers, ranchers and businesses that have been...

USDA and Lutheran SeniorLife recently celebrated the dedication and open house of RoseCrest Assisted Living Facility. USDA Rural Development provided a $3 Million Community Facilities loan for the construction of the new state-of-the-art facility designed specifically for older adults with Alzheimer...

In less than a year, residents in the city of Hawesville and Hancock County, Kentucky., will have a brand new library that will be twice as large as the existing one. The new 10,000 square foot facility will provide additional space for computers with Internet access, public meeting rooms and...

What better way to celebrate Earth Day last month than to recognize projects that are environmentally friendly and to educate our elementary school youths. That's exactly what we did in northwest Missouri. The Missouri Rural Development (RD) staff partnered with the Senior Citizens Nursing Home...