Starke County is moving forward with a Stellar Community application. The county’s Stellar Executive Team plans to submit a letter of intent by tomorrow’s deadline, according to Jessica Martinović with the Starke County Community Foundation.
“We are promoting regionalism, but we’re also looking at the uniqueness of every one of our communities and celebrating that uniqueness,” she explains, “but also looking at how we can work together to promote all of Starke County and really promote positivity in Starke County.”
A Stellar designation makes regions eligible for millions of dollars in grant funding, along with help for planning and project development.
At this point, Starke County, North Judson, and Hamlet are working on comprehensive plans. But Martinović says officials have already come up with a “dream list” of potential projects. “We’re definitely concentrating on enhancing our outdoor recreational opportunities, as well as focusing on making our downtowns more vibrant,” she says. “We’re also looking at the need for daycare in our community. We’re looking at helping to extend the trail by partnering with Prairie Trails Club, helping to implement workforce housing in our communities.”
Another part of bringing Starke County’s communities together as one region has to do with branding. “So we just recently came up with a name for our group, which is going to be ‘Constellation of Starke,’ to kind of play on constellation of stars,” Martinović explains, “and so we have a little bit of an image from Mirth and Whimsy. They’re local graphic design artists, photographers, and videographers, and so they’ve been working with us on our branding.” Martinović says the logo will consist of an outline of the county with a star for each of the communities, making up a constellation.
She adds that whether or not Constellation of Starke is officially designated a Stellar region this year, the plan is that the group will continue to exist, to work on ways to improve the local community. The state is expected to choose a list of finalists later this spring, before announcing this year’s Stellar designees in December.
