Montrose: small city, big plans.

Located in the southeast corner of Wright County, Montrose (pop. 2,800) has become a city poised for action. Since a core group of twelve citizens participated in the foundation's Healthy Communities Partnership (HCP) Program, they've been in "go mode".

"There is a turning of the tides in Montrose," commented Mary McCarty, co-chair of the Highway 12 redevelopment task force. "Volunteerism is up, and people are so much more optimistic that we can make Montrose a place we can all be proud to call home."

After graduating from HCP in 2008 and receiving a $15,000 grant, the city's priority goals revolved around increasing community pride, bringing more businesses to the area & making improvement plans for the Highway 12 corridor that runs through the city. Since then, the task forces that were created have met or exceeded all of their goals! A few of the activities and projects include:

• "movies in the park", a tree lighting ceremony, a community-wide garage sale and other community-wide events,
  
• creating a video to entice new businesses,
  
• transforming a vacant building into space for an early childhood education center and
• completing a design standards manual for remodeling or building in their commerical district.
  

To learn more about what these community sparkplugs have been up to, you can read a recent Herald-Journal article about their activities, download a copy of the presentation from their Sept 22 community meeting or visit the official (and slick-looking!) city website.