Dateline April 3, 2003:

"Cooperative Care" takes Top Rural Development Initiative honors at Wisconsin Rapids reception

Best Practices in Community Development

Wisconsin Rapids - Wisconsin Rural Partners, Inc. today awarded the Top Rural Development Initiatives for 2003 at a 5:30 p.m. recognition ceremony at The Mead Hotel. The awards were presented by Wisconsin Rural Partners president Jim Kohlenberg at a reception held in conjunction with the first annual Wisconsin Community Leadership Summit, which WRP is co-hosting with the Wisconsin Rural Leadership Program on Thursday and Friday. More than 200 community leaders from all over the Midwest are attending the summit.

This is the fifth year that Wisconsin Rural Partners has recognized Wisconsin's Top Rural Development Initiatives. The program is designed to identify, highlight, and share innovative models, practices and programs that have a positive impact on rural Wisconsin communities. Wisconsin Rural Partners created the program to provide a mechanism for rural communities to learn from each other. In five years, the Partnership has published yearbooks and profiles describing the more than 150 initiatives.

The top five ranked initiatives for 2003 are:

1. Cooperative Care (based in Waushara County)
2. Child Care Business Partnership, a pilot program in 9 counties
3. Fennimore Area Health Services
4. Friends of Donald Park (Dane County)
5. CAP Services, Inc. Oakridge Project (Wautoma)

The top-ranking Cooperative Care is a worker-owned cooperative providing homemaker service and certified nursing assistant care to elderly and disabled persons in their own homes – the first such employee-owned co-op in the Midwest.

Click here to view summary descriptions and contact information for all the awardees. [PDF 80kb].

Click here to view detailed descriptions of the initiatives together with photos of the award recipients. [PDF 109kb].

See our Archives page for publications of past years' Top Rural Development Initiatives.