Community Development Projects with Jodie Perry

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability and to correct obvious transcription errors while preserving the meaning of the original conversation.

Episode 53 — Community Development Projects with Jodie Perry
Clean Speaker-Labeled Transcript
Guest: Jodie Perry
Automated QA: Passed

00:00.842 Brandon Burton
This is the Chamber Chat Podcast, the show dedicated to chamber professionals to spark ideas and to get actionable tips and strategies to better serve your members and community.
00:14.414 Jodie Perry
And I'm your host. He's celebrating the first anniversary of Chamber Chat Podcast this week. He's my dad, Brandon Burton.
00:27.074 Brandon Burton
Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. This is Brandon Burton, your host, and it's my goal to help introduce you to people and ideas so you can better serve your chamber members and your community. In the introduction for this episode, you just heard my my daughter Addy mention that this is the one year mark for Chamber Chat Podcasts. I'm excited to celebrate one year going strong at this with Being consistent with one episode each week and and being able to meet and interview a lot of different chamber professionals from across the country. It's really been a treat to do this, and I'm just having a blast. But in this episode today, this is episode 53. And our guest today is Jodie Perry. And Jody is at the Richland Area Chamber in Ohio. And Jodi has served as the president and CEO of the Richland Area Chamber and Economic Development in Mansfield, Ohio since July 2014. In 2017, she also took over leadership for the Richland Community Development Group. In this combined role, she's responsible for leading the countywide economic, community, and workforce development efforts. Prior to this position, Jodi led the Greece, New York. and Van Wert, Ohio area chambers of commerce, and also served as staff at the Ashland Area Chamber of Commerce in Ohio. She also worked as deputy as the deputy chief clerk for the U.S. Senate Banking Committee. Jody received her Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Religion from Ashland University. In 2008, she graduated from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Institute for Organizational Management, earning the IOM designation. In 2018, she received the certified chamber executive designation. Distinction. Jody received the 2019 Athena Award for Richland County. She is on the Board of Trustees for the Institute of Organizational Management and Vice Chair for the Chamber of Commerce Executives of Ohio. The importance of business was instilled in Jodi at a young age as she grew up in a family of entrepreneurs in Rochester, New York.
02:45.122 Brandon Burton
We will have a discussion with Jodi today around community development since that is her primary target and and goal with her position. And we'll jump right into this discussion as soon as we get back from hearing from our sponsor. Every chamber is looking for new ways to increase their non-dues revenue. Has your chamber found a good affinity program? I have a great affinity program to offer your chamber that will continue to increase in revenue year after year. I want to introduce you to Swipe It for all of your credit card processing needs. Swipeit has a unique affinity program that 1. Lowers your credit card processing fees at the chamber, 2. helps your chamber members be more profitable, and 3 provides recurring non-dues revenue to your chamber. To learn more, please visit chamberchappodcast.com slash cc for credit card. Again, chamber tappodcast.com slash C C and get swiping with swipe it. Okay, Jody, we are back. Thank you for being with us today as we celebrate one year of Chambertap Podcast. if you would take a moment and say hello to the audience and share something inter interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little bit better.
04:07.48 Jodie Perry
Sure. Well, thanks for having me, Brandon, and congrats on one year. That's that's a big accomplishment. And I can only imagine the amount of work that goes in. So thanks for doing this. It's it's a great opportunity for for our colleagues for sure. I'm super excited to be here. And geez, let's see, something exciting about me. Well, you know, I'm a a proud dog mom to a rescue dog. named Liz Elizabeth Bennett. So I'm a a Jane Austen fan and she keeps me on my toes. and I love rescuing dogs whenever I can.
04:47.544 Brandon Burton
That's great. I always like getting these little tidbits from people that I interview. J facts that you don't know about people. So that's great. Thank you. Yeah. well, can you take just a moment and share with us a little bit about the Richland Area Chamber? so everyone can relate a little bit better. size, location, budget, just so we can know the perspective you're coming from as we talk about community development projects today.
05:12.686 Jodie Perry
Sure. So we are located, we represent Richland County, Ohio. our largest city is Mansfield, Ohio. And so we're located right between Cleveland and Columbus and Ohio. People know, tend to know those cities a little bit more. our chamber is a decent size. We have 1,010 members as of today. And we have a staff of nine. and we're actually combined entity. So you you kind of mentioned that in the in the bio, but we have the chamber itself is C6. We have a a C three that focuses on economic and workforce development. We actually have a second C three, a chamber foundation. So between all three entities, we we're around a million dollar budget. So it keeps us busy and we I love it. I I've been here about five and a half five and a half years. and it's just it's It's been a lot of fun.
06:13.794 Brandon Burton
Great. That's awesome. That yeah, that helps to give some perspective of kind of what the Mansfield area and Richland area chambers look looks like. so I've mentioned a couple of times that our topic for discussion today is going to be around community development projects. And you just mentioned that Mansfield is one of the the larger cities in your area. And and you guys recently have kind of had an undertaking community development project called Mansfield Rising. Can you tell us a little bit about the background about Mansfield Rising and what the the need was, what the purpose was for Mansfield Rising?
06:55.086 Jodie Perry
Sure. So, you know, I'm gonna start this by by telling you, you know, we're we're a a small to mid sized city. so our our county population is about a hundred and twenty one thousand. The city of Mansfield's just shy of fifty thousand. a manufacturing town that has been the backbone of our economy for for many, many years. And we kind of serve as a regional hub. between those those two larger cities I mentioned before. So shopping, healthcare, all of that, we we tend to be a draw from counties surrounding us. but our community was hit pretty hard by the recession. That was before I I was living here, but they you know everyone was but we had a a a rather large plant closing during that time and so things got maybe slightly worse here. our city went into fiscal emergency at the time And so we've been kind of behind the a-ball for a while. so things have certainly been improving. And about two years ago, took a call from the editor of our local online newspaper. And he said, you know, we like many chambers offer an overseas trip, right? And and that year in 2017, we happen to be promoting a go to Spain with the chamber. And Jay Alred called me and he said, Hey Jody, we have you ever thought of sponsoring a chamber trip to the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas? And I was like, Nope, never thought about it, but I'd be interested in going, so let's talk more. And so set up a meeting with him and we chatted, and that kind of went from us thinking about sponsoring a trip to take people to Let's go talk to our community foundation about underwriting a trip to send people there, to kind of expose them to the up-and-coming ideas that are happening.
08:55.51 Brandon Burton
It's not just an excuse to go party at South Bank.
08:57.61 Jodie Perry
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And to be honest with you, when we decided this, I was kind of like, Well, I'm game for anything, but there's no way they're gonna say yes to this. and it just so happened that at the same time the foundation had been having some internal conversations saying, you know, we like what we're seeing happening in downtown Mansfield, but it's not happening quick enough. And we'd like to make some investments there to spur things. but they weren't sure what to do. So when we came and talked to them, they said, you know what, we like your idea, but we want to give it a purpose. And so that's really how Mansfield Rising got started was they went out on a limb and underwrote a grant from us, or a grant to us rather, to take 15 community leaders, existing community leaders, and then what I would call the unusual suspects. to South by Southwest with the express school of coming back and writing a plan to revitalize our downtown area.
10:02.344 Brandon Burton
All right. So was that the overall goal you'd say is to be able to come back and have a plan for the revitalizing the downtown area? I guess what what was that overall goal goal look like as far as the revitalization? What did you want to see out of it?
10:18.542 Jodie Perry
Well well, we had seen, you know, there had been work happening in our downtown for for twenty years. we have a carousel in our downtown, and when that was put in years ago, Literally, there was a campaign in the community that's that was so against it. They had bumper stickers that said, last one out of Mansfield, turn off the carousel. Like it was just like it kind of gives you an insight into the mindset here at the time. And so the carousel has proven to be a huge success and has certainly spurred development in that part of our downtown. but things were happening slowly and incrementally. And we felt collectively as a community like We don't want to wait another 30 years for this to continue to marinate. Like we need to spur something a little quicker. And so, you know, the short term goal was yes, just come back and create a plan. Excuse me. The long term goal is we really want our downtown thriving. Like many communities, I mean, certainly in the in the Rust Belt part of the country, you know, we have struggled with a a declining population. Which impacts our businesses' abilities to find employees, it impacts our tax base. you know, that that's a big problem. And what we've seen, you know, we've watched communities all over the country do this. When you strengthen the heart of your community, the kind of that core, the growth emanates out from that. And so that's really that was our overall goal was let's strengthen the core and then you know, kind of. have that spur and spoke out into the farther areas.
12:00.076 Brandon Burton
Yeah, so you had mentioned the bumper stickers. Yeah. so this carousel, was it city owned? Was it privately owned? Is that what spurred the bumper sticker and kind of the the pushback against the carousel?
12:17.966 Jodie Perry
Sure. So this was in the early 90s. And you know, I think at the time there was, I can tell you, you know, downtown Mansfield at that time was was not a place that many people wanted to go. and so there was definitely just some skepticism as part of it. the place where the carousel was going, the city did use eminent domain to capture some of that land, so that certainly spurred some of it. It's not city owned the carousel. It is its own nonprofit, but the city was actively involved along with some private developers in in doing it. and interestingly, kind of a byproduct was, you know, at the time, it's a wooden carousel, so it's all hand-carved animals. And at the time there wasn't anyone doing that anymore. So a company was created to build this carousel locally, and they still are here. They're called carousel works, and they're the only wooden manufacturer of carousels. So they now ship them, build them here in in Mansfield and and ship them all over the world. so it kind of has a an economic development tie into it, which I think is is really awesome.
13:27.758 Brandon Burton
That is awesome. That is cool. So going from those bumper stickers and that resistance in the community, how did you go about building the social capital to have this kind of rising of downtown and and changing this whole outlook for the future?
13:44.504 Jodie Perry
Yeah, so when I said earlier, you know, our our low was was pretty low here. And so I think what that did do, the positive of that, was that it brought everyone around the table to say, look, how we've been doing things isn't working. We need to do it differently. And so, you know, there was a lot of entities and organizations that have really built up this idea of collaboration. I don't think we could have done this project. Two years earlier or three years earlier. I mean, the timing of it was definitely providential. certainly I would say, you know, in my work as the chamber exec, I spent, so this was about what, two and a half years, almost three years into my term when we first started talking about this. I had spent an awful lot of time building relationships and doing smaller collaborations with these entities that were our key partners. And so I think that that allowed us to build trust. And we knew how each other worked and we knew that, you know, yeah, if we're all gonna do this together, we're all gonna deliver together. So I think that would that really mattered. The other thing I would say is that we were extremely intentional about who we recruited on the team. so there was 15 of us that went and like I said, some of us would be the usual suspects. And then there were some that were not the usual suspects. we were purposefully we kind of chose a younger demographic, a more diverse demographic. we wanted folks that were either living, working, or already investing in some way in downtown Mansfield and and had some evidence that they were people that could deliver. you know. We knew it would be a lot of work. I I have to be honest, I had no idea how much work it was gonna be. both in the planning and and certainly now now we're implementing the plan. but you know, I think we we had a really great team and and that really turned out to matter extensively throughout this process.
15:54.08 Brandon Burton
So with this trip to South by Southwest, were these ideas and things that you got to implement into into this goal, were they specifically from South by Southwest or from the city of Austin or a combination? What what spurred these ideas that you had to implement into Mansfield?
16:12.684 Jodie Perry
Yeah, so the plan has amazingly thirty-nine ideas, which is a an awful lot of ideas, but you know, they range from very small to to very large ideas. and I would say they came from, yeah, certainly some came from our our trip to Austin, both Austin itself as well as South by Southwest. but we also did an awful lot of excuse me. research when we came back. We did a lot of benchmarking and looking at what other communities were doing. we did a tremendous amount of listening to our own community when we got back as well. We went on a listening tour and did some fun interactive things to try to pull ideas out of our own local audience. So it's really an amalgamation of all of those things.
17:04.118 Brandon Burton
All right. So so you talked a little bit about how you went about building social capital, building those relationships and and that trust throughout some of these community leaders, if you will. And how did you go about using media to promote this project and to get the community at large on board?
17:26.356 Jodie Perry
a great question and again this is really providential about who our partners were so i mentioned jay all read earlier jay happens to be the publisher of richlandsource.com and it's a local online news media outlet and so obviously having them as as a key partner made a huge difference in this I'll remember so we kind of recruited everyone in the summer of twenty seventeen, but we didn't actually go to South by Southwest until March of twenty eighteen. And about a month out, we started meeting monthly just to, you know, we didn't all know each other. So we we did some community building and things like that to get ready for the trip. And about a month earlier, before we traveled, Jay reached out to myself and and Allie Watson, who was our other partner from the Richmond County Foundation. And he said, Hey, I think we need to take advantage of this opportunity. Only 15 of us can travel, but I think other people will be interested in our experience. Why don't we have the team blog? And I I was I was very reticent about that because I was like, what if someone goes off the reservation? What happens if they say something crazy? And so, but luckily he he talked us off the ledge and he was like, No, I think this will be great. My team will help with editing it, it'll be fine. So we had an extensive blog. blog schedule. We all blogged at least twice or three times on the trip. And that ended up being incredible. we had huge amounts of reads on those blogs. And so, you know, we're down there kind of in a bubble. and we came back and it was really evident that a lot of the community was following what we were saying and and what we were learning, which was really awesome. And so we had a hashtag that we used. that ended up having it a million views on social media just in the the couple months around the actual trip itself, which was just like, I mean, as a chamber person, I I love what I do, but there's very little that we do that impacts the general public so pervasively. And so this was a whole new experience for me. So we kept and stayed committed to that throughout the process. We stayed pretty transparent, continued to blog, continued to
19:51.592 Jodie Perry
I I mentioned on listening to her, we we really went out of our way to engage the public. And I think that that really it mattered in the end. you know, Mansfield Rising has become its own entity. I mean, not literally organizationally, but just like it's its own thing in our community now. And I think that, you know, that partnership with the with the media is really to to a large degree responsible for that.
20:20.226 Brandon Burton
So I'm curious, what was the hashtag that you guys r used?
20:24.046 Jodie Perry
So at the time we used South by Southwest419, which is our area code. So it's SXSW419. and if you search that, you'll see on Twitter and Facebook and everything links to our blogs. And you know, we certainly were active on social media while we were there. and that's really the hashtag we use throughout the whole planning process. When we got to the end of the plan and delivered it, which was about a year ago, we all said, you know. At this point, South by Southwest was our our vehicle to get here, but it really meaningful Yeah, it's not meaningful anymore to what we're doing. So so that was when we transitioned to the name Mansfield Rising.
21:06.26 Brandon Burton
Okay. So I'm gonna put these hashtags in the show notes too. So if people wanna check out what these posts look like on Twitter and Facebook and everything to see what that discussion looked like, they can kind of check that out and see some of those blog posts and everything. I love that you're able to partner with the online newspaper and i it wasn't just social media. I'm sure I mean social media leveraged what you had going on with the blog and all that. but I think that becomes an outlet that a lot of people maybe overlook and they don't think about the the local stuff. They just go straight to social media and it it can work in tandem very well. so where are you guys at now in the implementation of your plan for Mansfield Rising?
21:54.318 Jodie Perry
So we delivered the report a year ago. It was accepted by the foundation. and then we went on, we spent about three months shoring up additional support. So obviously the chamber board passed it. we went to city council, they adopted it, our county commissioners adopted it. I think right now we're up to like over a dozen organizations that have kind of, you know, given their seal of approval to it. and then we transitioned really into working projects and and plans. So again, you know, the team we continue to meet every month and and we're working on different projects. We've had some wins you know some things that were already kind of in process before we went even traveled but sounds like a relatively small thing but in our community it was big we had So we have a lot of one-way streets in our downtown, which makes it very hard to get around and not not very friendly to a visitor. So we worked with the city, the chamber and the city partnered together to flip one of them into a two-way street. and it was that's huge. It it is, and it was it was an amazing amount of work, which I had no idea of when I happened to call the city engineer and ask him. He was one of our our team members, which certainly helped, but ton of work. that took place in August. And, you know, at the time when it was announced by the city and voted on and everything, you know, there's social media outcry, my gosh, the sky's gonna fall. And I'm telling you, like not a single thing has happened. Like everyone just is driving on it like, gee, this makes sense. Like, right, exactly. So We're already talking about a couple other streets. we did do a a temporary, you call them a like a pop-up project in our downtown to look at increasing accessibility. We kind of have a a couple long city blocks. So we temporarily put in a a mid block crosswalk. that was so successful that we went ahead and and made that permanent and put a decorative thing in. So, so that's been another tangible thing.
24:12.358 Jodie Perry
So right now we're also in the planning stages. one of the projects in the plan is investing in Main Street. So our our Main Street streetscape is about 40 years old, it's crumbling, it's not the best look for the front door of the community. And so we are putting together about an eight a seven million dollar project to fix that. And you know, two years ago. I don't even think pe you know, I mean, people would be like, yeah, that's that's needed, but how are we gonna do that? How do we pay for that? but there's there's avenues to pay for it and we're we're moving down the pike. So it's it's not a done deal yet, but I think within the next few months it it will be. so that's huge. I mean, that's gonna just totally transform our downtown. So we're really excited about a lot of these things that are going on. The other big thing that we're working on, particularly Is a community brand. And so that was one of the recommendations in the plan. So the chamber and our visitors bureau are partnering on this project, again in a collaborative, inclusive manner. we've hired a branding company. we have shored up all of our funding to pay them, which was a a challenge. And yeah, and so we're gonna kick that off after the first of the year and and hopefully by the end of the year we'll have a a new brand.
25:42.76 Brandon Burton
Awesome. So as you're giving that that answer there, it made me wonder, you know, with all this attention to downtown, do you have I'm sure you've got a a healthy amount of chamber members and businesses in the community that are outside of downtown. Do they have any pushback to so much attention being put on downtown? Or how do you go about, you know, explaining the importance of revitalizing downtown to the overall community?
26:12.91 Jodie Perry
Excuse me. I wouldn't say that we've had pushback. certainly I've had members that say, hey Jody, don't forget there's other areas of the community. you know, to address that and and actually to even compound that, we represent the whole county. So there's two other cities and multiple other villages that we work with on a regular basis. So from our perspective as the chamber, we've really tried to be very intentional about working projects. in each of these areas. So they may not all be as large as Mansfield Rising, but there are certainly projects that are meaningful
27:00.237 Brandon Burton
Yeah.
27:01.24 Jodie Perry
Okay, sorry, I'm I was having that phone call call in. but there are certainly projects that are me are meaningful. I would say, you know, for another exec that that might be considering doing something, you know, be strategic so that you can you know, really try to show that you are focusing some attention on other areas. I mean, you you can't give everything to everywhere. there certainly is a limit. But I think there's a lot to To the argument that if you can bolster the core of your community, the overall community is and will be more successful.
27:40.248 Brandon Burton
Very good. I I agree. you gotta give the attention all around, but having a certain focus I think helps and as you can draw more, whether it's tourism or whether it's just overall business growth and just strength, even if it's a focus in Mansfield, it's gonna filter out as people live in the surrounding communities and everything. So it is important. But what metrics can you see to show what effectiveness or success you guys are having in implementing your Mansfield Rising project.
28:14.658 Jodie Perry
Yeah, great question. So we're early in the process in terms of implementation. so a lot of, you know, we have great metrics as far as the interaction that we've had from the general public. so you know, I mentioned that the hashtag metric earlier. you know, because of Richland Source, they they've been able to track the readership on their stories. you know, a big metric, was that our city council, which you know, I mentioned earlier, they had been in fiscal emergency not too long before this. they actually have created a fund to support projects in the downtown area. And that is just huge. you know, to be able to have s some money from the municipal government has has definitely been a game changer. otherwise they'd be great ideas and and not a lot of ways to get to them. certainly the the Richland County Foundation and the philanthropic money that is you know, committed is also a game changer in their focus being downtown. and, you know, I would say just anecdotally, and I wish there was a way to track it, there's just more optimism here. you know, there are still those that are are skeptical and and probably have that bumper sticker. But you know, I think what it has unleashed is people that have said, my gosh, I've wanted positive things to happen for so long. It's so awesome to see you guys out in front of this and really trying to move things. So, you know, it's hard to measure that. But you know, we just went through an election cycle where we had competitive races in every city election. And that's been a long time since that's happened. And I think that's because people see hope. They see that there are things changing and and there's a lot of reasons. That's I'm not I by no means am I saying Nancy old rising is the only reason for that. but I think it's a tangible thing that people do seem to have attached themselves to, which is again, it's really fun for me because as a chamber exec, I love my job. I love what we do, but so much of it I'm not
30:35.83 Jodie Perry
i you know, I mean, I interact with the general public, but I'm not affecting the general public in this way. So this was has truly been a a a a fun project to work on.
30:45.964 Brandon Burton
Yeah, I'm sure all that credit is directly because of you and because of Mansfield Rising.
30:51.214 Jodie Perry
We'll we'll take it, but no. There's lots of good stuff happening.
30:57.58 Brandon Burton
I I think, you know, we'd love to have the data and everything to point back to, but I I think what you said is so key. Just hearing people be more optimistic and getting that positive feedback and because that's gonna change the whole environment of the community. If the optimism's there and people are willing to put themselves out there and do more because they feel like the community at large is is more positive and and a brighter outlook. is gonna just have a positive influence over the the entire community. So I think that it's not a exact data point that you can look at, but optimism is huge. So
31:33.55 Jodie Perry
Yeah, it's like momentum in sports, right? The team that has that momentum. It there's i I don't know how you measure that, but it certainly makes a difference. And I think it does to a community too. So I feel like we're we're getting that finally, which is fun.
31:46.708 Brandon Burton
Exactly. So and Jody, as we start wrapping things up here, regarding our discussion today around community development projects, for the chamber professionals that are listening, based on our discussion today, what action items could you share with them as they try to lift their communities and their chambers up to the next level?
32:11.374 Jodie Perry
You know, I would say a couple of things. First, don't be afraid to convene. you know, we sit in a really unique position as the Chamber of Commerce. We have a pretty big tent. So we have small business, large business, government, private sector, philanthropy, education, et cetera, et cetera. And so we have an opportunity to convene. And I think that, you know, if I see a trend in the industry, I I've been in the industry 17 years, it's that we as chambers are starting to embrace that role. And so it might be convening on a small topic to begin, but that can grow into something larger. And the second thing I would say is that collaboration really is key. And that's going to take a real commitment to relationship building and trust building. And I think you know it's hard work. It's hard to maintain it. It is a tremendous time commitment on my part to be building these relationships. But I a hundred percent believe that this project couldn't have happened if we weren't doing that. So you know, just think about as you're going through your day, you know, if you're struggling with an area, I mean, not necessarily a physical area of your community, but just a topic or something. Well, who do you need to build that relation build a relationship with to start conversations? Because I'm constantly amazed in this industry, in this job, how often things happen just based off of a conversation where you're just like, you think that too? Yeah, me too. We should do something about that. And sometimes we just get so busy with the day to day that we forget to have those conversations. So
34:00.46 Brandon Burton
I love it. Convene and collaborate. So I I asked this question to everyone that I have on the podcast that as we look to the future of chambers of commerce, how do you see the purpose of a chamber going forward?
34:16.994 Jodie Perry
You know, kind of how I answered that last question. The the chamber has a a really unique role in a community. And yes, we represent the business community and that that is certainly our core product, but we also have a a bigger, I believe we have a a bigger role in terms of community development. And so again, you know, in my seventeen years in the industry, which by the way makes me feel really old, but You know, there's a definite change happening within our profession. And so we're at the beginning it was very focused on the things that just serve the business needs. I think now we realize, well, as the business community goes, so goes the general community and vice versa. And so we have to be we can't be too narrowly focused. We we have to be bridge builders. And so that that's my That's where I see things going. And I I you know, attending ACCE and Institute, I'm I'm constantly really trying to challenge and grow myself in terms of, you know, some of these things I've I've never done before. So how do I do it and who can I connect with that can help me become a better exec?
35:36.462 Brandon Burton
That's great. So if any listeners out there wanted to kind of pick your brain a little bit or ask you some questions about how you went about this Mansfield Rising community development project that maybe we didn't cover, what would be the best way they could reach out to you and connect with you?
35:54.638 Jodie Perry
Sure. So my email is email's a great way. it's Jperry at Richlandarea Chamber dot com. you can also catch me at the chamber, which is four one nine five two two three two one one. I did I'm also I have a Twitter handle which is at Chamber Doty. So I'm I'm not always the most dedicated to that, but certainly you can you can look at that. Right. J-O-D-I-E, yes, thank you. I will say I did present about Lansfield Rising at the ACCE conference in 20 this year in 2019. I'd be happy to share my presentation with anyone that that's interested in learning more and and certainly talking about it. It's a unique project, and you know, not that I think every chamber's gonna do it. Maybe nobody else does it, but I think it kind of presented a different way to look at community planning. And there's certainly aspects of it that any size community could do.
36:57.346 Brandon Burton
That's right. And we'll get all that all your contact information on our show notes page for this episode, which will be found at chamber chatpodcast dot com slash episode fifty three. And if you'd like, we can actually link directly to your ACCE presentation. So if people want to just go there, they can link directly to it and see what all you had to say about Mansfield Rising.
37:18.51 Jodie Perry
Sure, that'd be awesome.
37:20.098 Brandon Burton
Very good. Well, I appreciate you spending some time with us today, Jody, here on Chamber Chat Podcast. I think you bring some insight and perspective from, you know, your point of view there in in Mansfield, Ohio. And hopefully some some of those that are listening can get some ideas of how they can work on some community development projects in their own communities. So thanks a lot.
37:42.84 Jodie Perry
Thanks, Brandon.
37:44.896 Brandon Burton
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