A federal grant of $715,000 has been awarded to a 17-county effort to spur economic development in southeast Kansas.
The Kansas Department of Commerce announced Wednesday that the grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development and U.S. Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration is in addition to $1 million worth of leadership training for the initiative from the Kansas Health Institute. The training funds were announced in March.
In a news release, the Department of Commerce said the “Together We Succeed: Southeast Kansas Economic Improvement Initiative” – more commonly called Project 17 – will be managed by southeast Kansas stakeholders and in cooperation with Kansas State University’s Advanced Manufacturing Institute and the Kansas Department of Commerce.
According to the release, the goal of the effort is to create and sustain jobs in advanced manufacturing and other economic sectors in southeast Kansas.
The counties involved include Allen, Anderson, Bourbon, Chautauqua, Cherokee, Coffey, Crawford, Elk, Franklin, Greenwood, Labette, Linn, Miami, Montgomery, Neosho, Wilson and Woodson.