Letchworth Gateway Villages Wins Inaugural Lipinski Rural Initiatives Award

Press release courtesy of Farm Credit East:

ENFIELD, Conn. — At Farm Credit East’s Annual Meeting held earlier this week, the financial cooperative was pleased to announce two winners of the inaugural Lipinski Rural Initiatives award. This award was created by Farm Credit East’s Board of Directors in 2020 to recognize former Farm Credit East CEO Bill Lipinski and aims to recognize innovative and transformational efforts to revitalize Northeast rural communities. Each recipient was awarded $25,000.

Three River Farmers Alliance is the first recipient of the 2021 Lipinski Rural Initiatives Award. In 2014, four farms in New Hampshire’s Seacoast region joined together to market their produce. Today, that network has grown to 58 local producers and 25 employees who share a vision of creating healthier communities and expanding economic opportunities for the region’s farmers. Learn more at ThreeRiverFa.com. Three River Farmers Alliance will use its $25,000 award to move to a new facility where it plans to expand the availability of locally sourced food.

The second recipient is Letchworth Gateway Villages, a collaborative effort of the towns of Geneseo, Mt. Morris and Perry in New York’s Genesee Valley. These towns have been working together to attract investment by leveraging the area’s recreational and tourism opportunities and connecting them with new and existing businesses. The collaboration has generated over $800,000 in investment, helped spur a dozen new enterprises and created 30 new jobs. Learn more at LetchworthGatewayVillages.org. Letchworth Gateway Villages will use its $25,000 award as the seed capital for a rural impact fund to support new venture creation.

“Bill understood the long-term success of Northeast farm, forest products and fishing businesses is dependent on the health of the rural communities where they are based, so we created this award in his honor to highlight new approaches to enhance the quality of life in rural communities,” said board chair Laurie Griffen. “Both of this year’s recipients are doing excellent work to support their rural communities, which will benefit the Farm Credit East customers who call them home. We hope this award helps them further their efforts.”

Click the link below to view a short video on this year’s recipients. Funding for the award was made possible by contributions from Farm Credit East matched by its strategic partner, CoBank. Nominations for the 2022 award will open in the winter of 2021.

LGV Launches Trail Town Destination Project to Support Rural Communities in the Genesee Valley

Photo credit: Katie Sutor | October 2019 USDA REDI Kick-Off Event at the Humphrey Nature Center in Letchworth State Park.

On Friday, February 19, LGV kicked off a new Trail Town Destination Development project, which will establish a network of 10 hospitality hubs (“Trail Towns”) along the Genesee Valley Greenway and Genesee River corridor. Over the next 12 months, this project will be implemented in the towns of Wheatland, Avon, York, Perry, Mount Morris, Geneseo, Nunda, Hume, Caneadea, and Cuba, in an effort to boost outdoor tourism and help the region’s post COVID-19 recovery.

With nearly 1 million visitors coming to Letchworth State Park annually and investments by New York State and private foundations accelerating the growth of long-distance trail systems in Western New York, this project is especially timely. The goals include equipping communities to better position their proximity to the region’s natural assets to visitors, an objective with increased relevance during the COVID-19 pandemic as people seek safe outdoor activities.

Trail Town Programs are a proven approach to revitalizing rural communities by growing outdoor tourism and small businesses. One of the first and best documented examples of a Trail Town program was the Great Allegheny Passage (GAP), which helped support communities along its 150 mile corridor achieve an annual economic impact of $50 million since launching in 2007. Since then, Trail Towns have been adapted and replicated nationwide. 

Leading pioneers of the Trail Town movement spoke to the over 100 virtual event participants, explaining how the programs have transformed rural communities across the U.S. The panel featured David A. Kahley, President and CEO of the Progress Fund, which established the first Trail Town program in the U.S. along the 150 mile Great Allegheny Passage (GAP); Seth Wheat, the Director of Tourism Development for the Kentucky Department of Tourism, which was the first statewide Trail Town program ever implemented; Dylan Carey, Project Director for Parks & Trail New York (PTNY), the leading advocacy organization for trail preservation and promotion in New York State; and Russell Hirschler, Executive Director of the Upper Valley Trails Alliance (UVTA) in Vermont, a multi-stakeholder collaboration that developed and manages TrailFinder.info, an innovative digital mapping tool that helps promote sustainable outdoor tourism in the region.

During the project, participating communities will receive destination capacity building support, including: development of consistent trail town branding and marketing guidelines for signage, wayfinding and more; as well as a Genesee Valley-wide digital trail mapping and management tool that better connects town assets with trail users. Trail Towns will bring enhancements like kiosks, signage, trailhead improvements, and public art that improve trail-to-town connectivity; and the development of strategies and tools to support new venture creation and municipal activities that advance outdoor recreation tourism. 

Expected longer-term benefits include increased overnight stays and spending, which generate important bed and sales tax for counties as well as increased property values and investment, and improved rural infrastructure while protecting trail and natural assets.

Funding for this initiative comes from the Northern Border Regional Commission (NBRC) and USDA Rural Business Development Grant Program. This funding and the Trail Town project are a direct outcome of the 18-month USDA Rural Economic Innovation Development (REDI) planning initiative LGV embarked on with 70 partners from across the five-county Genesee Valley Region in 2019-2020. This same group of partners, which includes organizations like the Friends of the Genesee Valley Greenway, the Genesee River Wilds, the Finger Lakes Trail Conference, among others, will be an integral part of implementing the Trail Town initiative in 2021 and beyond.

Learn more about the Genesee Valley Trail Town Initiative here.

$750,000 for Rural Revitalization in the Genesee Valley

$750,000 is now available to support historic preservation in the rural communities of the Genesee Valley, thanks to the National Park Service’s Paul Bruhn Rural Revitalization Grant Program. Letchworth Gateway Villages (LGV), along with the Landmark Society of Western New York and the Rochester Area Community Foundation, contributed a portion of matching funds, securing this opportunity for the region. Local governments, non-profit and commercial property owners, and small businesses in the Genesee Valley are encouraged to apply for grants ranging from $5,000 to $50,000 to preserve the historic places that make our villages so special.

Since LGV won funding from the USDA for the Rural Economic Development Innovation (REDI) Initiative in 2019, the group has brought together a diverse network of 38 organizations across five counties, all with the common goal of establishing the Genesee Valley as a sustainable outdoor recreation and heritage tourism destination. The Valley is uniquely poised to become such a destination, with assets like Letchworth State Park, historic districts, and hundreds of miles of trails, but previously lacked the funding and regional collaboration to capitalize on this potential. It is through the work of LGV — and stakeholders like the Landmark Society and New York State Parks — that the rural Genesee Valley attracted new investment and funding opportunities, such as this grant.

The Genesee Valley Rural Revitalization Grant Program (GVRR) will award the funds, and applications will be available through the Landmark Society of Western New York in early-January 2021. Applications will be due March 31, 2021, for round 1 funding, and September 30, 2021, for the second. The Landmark Society is hosting an informational webinar on this opportunity at 3:30PM on Thursday, January 28, and repeating the same webinar at 12:00PM on Tuesday, February 9. You can register for the webinar at https://www.landmarksociety.org/GVRR; for more information on the grant program, contact Megan Klem, Preservation Planner, at mklem@landmarksociety.org.

LGV Director Nominated for 2020 Reshaping Rochester Awards

Letchworth Gateway Villages is pleased to share the news that director Nicole Manapol was nominated and is a finalist for the Community Design Center Rochester’s 2020 Reshaping Rochester Awards. This award recognizes 'civic spirit, persistence, and determination in turning a vision into reality.' The virtual award ceremony will take place Thursday, November 19th from 12:00pm to 1:30pm on Zoom.