Cross posted from the White House Rural Champions of Change website:
Sue is the Executive Director at the Vernon Economic Development Association in southwest Wisconsin. She’s spearheading a remarkably comprehensive effort at economic development around local and regional food systems that has included both USDA and EDA support.
In the past year she’s established a cooperative consisting of both producers, distributors, and buyers that are moving more healthy, local food into local institutions (UW-La Crosse, a local hospital) and is also in the beginning stages of refurbishing an abandoned industrial park into a food hub, providing a foundation for entrepreneurialism and innovation, and enterprise development. To find out more, go to the Vernon Economic Development Association website.