Susan Eckert tells of a lunch date during which a friend mentioned a family member about to lose her house.
The recession hits home.
And it made Eckert think that maybe Lancaster County's priorities are changing.
Four months ago, she and some 350 other people spent a day talking and thinking about the challenges Lancaster County will face in the year 2020.
Eckert is president of the United Way of Lancaster County, which along with the Lancaster County Community Foundation and the Lancaster County Chamber of Business & Industry, sponsored the event — called, appropriately enough, Lancaster 2020.
And the conclusions reached that November day focused on improving education, attracting and growing businesses, improving the efficiency of public services, and streamlining the way Lancaster County grows and develops.
Now, though, putting food on the table may be more important. If so, Eckert and other Lancaster 2020 participants hope local residents will hop online and tell them.
Lancaster 2020 unveiled a blog last week and is now on LinkedIn, one of the country's biggest "social networking" sites; a Facebook page may follow. The goal, said Samuel Bressi, president and CEO of the Lancaster County Community Foundation, is to "open up the conversation to a new generation and get a diversity of voices at the table" to address the most pressing issues facing the county.
Lancaster 2020 freely admits it's not sure where that conversation will lead. Ultimately, said Tom Baldrige, president of the Lancaster County Chamber of Commerce & Industry, "the bull's-eye may bubble up from these conversations."
The blog can be found at
lancaster2020.wordpress.com.
The summit, in November, attracted a diverse crowd, from CEOs to high school students. Just because Lancaster County has been prosperous in the past, participants were told, doesn't automatically mean it will prosper in the future.
Participants identified priorities for the county; ensuring access to quality education was ranked at the top of the list, followed by the need for the county to attract and grow business.
Affordable health care, safe and affordable housing, improved public transportation and safeguarding the environment were also part of the discussion, as were suggestions about how the county could achieve the goals.
The summit was being presented in partnership with AmericaSpeaks, a nonprofit organization in Washington, D.C. The final report is posted on the Web at
www.lancaster2020.org. But sponsors didn't want the initiative to end there; the talk needs to be translated into action.
So they hope the conversations that may develop on the blog, and the network that could be created on LinkedIn, can prompt local residents to get involved, to volunteer time or solutions.
"We had this [summit] in November, and it feels like the whole world has shifted under us," Bressi said. "Maybe we have to do some things differently. And these discussions will help shape the direction of the foundation going forward."
Gil Smart is associate editor of the Sunday News. E-mail him at gsmart@lnpnews.com, or phone 291-8817. 