Rushville, IL – Rushville will get some help with community and economic development.
Mayor Scott Thompson says the city will host a Peace Corps Fellow from Western Illinois University. "We are fortunate to have a masters student in economics come to Rushville," says Thompson. "He will start at the beginning of the semester."
"Typically for a community to host a Peace Corps Fellow for a semester it runs about $21,000. The Institute worked with the Kellogg Foundation to get $16,000 of it paid for. The city will pay $5,000."
Thompson says one of his duties will be to write up grant applications for the city. "The city does not have an economic developer or a community developer," says Thompson. "It's going to give us the chance to have someone work for us full-time with supervision. We want to give him some good experience for what he hopes to do down the road."
"We have some reasonably high expectations of him," says Thompson. "We are excited about this opportunity."
Thompson says this is the first time the city has hosted a Peace Corps Fellow.