Episode 147 // Jenna Ramsey of Stanton Community Development and Kevin Cabbage of FMTC

Nov 30

Kevin Cabbage, FMTC General Manager and CEO
Jenna Ramsey, Stanton Community Development Director
Mickey Anderson, Stanton Area Industrial Foundation President

On today’s episode of the Rural Revival podcast we’re with Stanton Community Development Director Jenna Ramsey, and FMTC General Manager and CEO Kevin Cabbage, both from Stanton, Iowa (pop. 678).

Kevin and Jenna are sharing how Kevin’s company created a role for a community development director, a role that Jenna now fills, in partnership with their city. This partnership, along with Jenna’s hard work and the help of many others, has allowed them to receive over $5 million in grants in five years — and their Main Street is thriving.

The theme that resonates throughout this interview is people and partners. If you want strategies for getting your community to work together on a greater vision and get projects completed, you are going to love this interview!

We are excited to be featuring success stories from Stanton all week long, so be sure to check out our socials and website each day for new inspiration!

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“Prior to having this position in place, Stanton had a long history of great volunteers that were willing to put in the effort and the time to do the things that we felt our community needed, not only for growth, but more importantly, for sustainability. The challenge to that was that it was all volunteers. So it’s great to have them, but yet that’s a big ask of time and resources to really move your community forward with what we really felt the opportunities were and the time required with that. For us to really move forward we need somebody dedicated to this position that could really stay on top of the opportunities, ideas, keep our community organized with those ideas and concepts, but more importantly develop a network of relationships to go after what we needed to make some of the projects in our community a reality.”
- Kevin Cabbage

“It all starts with a plan. In today’s environment, when the funding opportunities present themselves, you really don’t have much time to react to put a plan together. That’s kind of been our focus, having that plan ready to go so when you do identify the funding you’re ready to move really, really quickly.”
- Kevin Cabbage

“There’s nothing like returning home again, but what am I returning to?”
- Kevin Cabbage

“All of those partnerships have been key in getting things done and we take pride in it’s not one person or group — it’s everybody.”
- Jenna Ramsey

“People want to help your community complete those projects and complete that vision. So it’s really with a plan and showing that everybody’s on board.”
- Jenna Ramsey

“I really just want every community to prosper, and if we just share our testimony and show by example what we’ve accomplished, if we can help others with that, we’re very pleased to do that.”
- Kevin Cabbage