LETTER TO THE EDITOR Volunteers made grant application unique

It was great to read Scott Miller’s comments about the RAISE grant application to widen Kidron Road. I had spoken with him in December about that project and he invited me to participate during development of the grant application.

Every week in January and February we met with the grant writers, county engineers, and representatives of Rails‐to‐Trails. Several times during these meetings I represented Sugar Creek Township to steer the application back to Kidron Road instead of bike paths in northern Wayne County.

I finally got the grant writer’s attention when I presented letters of support for the Kidron Road project from our community members. I want to personally thank Reuben Beachy, Amos Garber, Betty Geiser, Bo Sleutz, and Larry Wald for their part in collecting the literally hundreds of letters of support from our community and over 68 businesses as well. The grant writers remarked several times that this level of support was very unique.

Without the energy and participation of these volunteers, this opportunity would have passed us. Of course, now we are waiting for the federal government to make the right decision and it still might take two or three phases to get the project completed — just like widening Mt Hope Road in Holmes County took a few years — but at least we made it known that our community supports this project and, if not this time, I’m going to keep working to make this a reality. Thank you to these volunteers and thank you for the opportunity to represent Sugar Creek Township.

– Scott Widmer
Sugar Creek Township trustee