A volunteer committee is seeking the public’s input as Washington looks to be declared a Great Place in Iowa. The Iowa Great Places program is for nonprofit organizations and communities and is run by the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs. Upon receiving the designation, a community becomes eligible for a grant that averages about $210,000 for a project.

Main Street Washington Director Sarah Grunewaldt says that’s where the community’s opinion comes into play since a specific project has not yet been identified, “As a committee, we’re in the process of doing some fact finding and we would love to get input from our community as to what makes our community great but then also what would they like to see, what would make it even better. And so we’ll be setting up chalkboards at the farmers’ market starting in the next few weeks through mid-October, October 15th I believe is the last market. And asking people just to answer one or two simple questions on those chalk boards each week and we’ll be collecting all of the input we get into a report.” The Iowa Great Places Program describes itself as a program that provides designation and then supports the development of projects with the intention of cultivating unique and cultural qualities of neighborhoods, communities, and regions of the state.

Washington applied for the program nearly 15 years ago and was denied twice, which then spurred the application to become a branch of the Main Street organization. Main Street Washington began in 2008 and has since assisted with numerous projects, businesses, and historic preservation projects in the downtown district.