By Kevin Haas
Rock River Current
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ROCKFORD — The city’s latest effort to push forward with pandemic recovery can be boiled down to two words: Let’s party.
City Council members on Tuesday will be asked to approve the Forward for Fun initiative, which allocates thousands of dollars to each of the city’s 14 wards to create free events designed to bring the community together.
The goal is to connect residents following more than two years of pandemic separation while supporting businesses and entrepreneurs throughout the city.
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The city plans to allocate $75,000 for the program, which it hopes to match with $75,000 in private fundraising. Each ward would get $10,500 to be spent on the events. The city’s share of the funding would come from American Rescue Plan dollars, the federal coronavirus stimulus package.
The city hopes the events will create new reasons for residents to connect after higher rates of isolation and loneliness amid the pandemic. It also wants to spur the local economy by using locally owned businesses for food or entertainment.
“They can get some local musicians there, they can partner with some local radio stations, they can partner with local businesses so that we can spur local business as well as bring people together to help rebuild some of those relationships that we’ve been unable to maintain throughout COVID-19,” Mayor Tom McNamara said on This Week in the Stateline.
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McNamara said he hopes the effort can “energize every single ward in our city” after the pandemic kept people apart.
The goal is to have the events scheduled as soon as possible for dates throughout the summer if, as expected, the City Council approves the measure on Tuesday.
“You’ll start hearing about these events pretty quickly, I’d say in April and early May our first events will start,” McNamara said.
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This article is by Kevin Haas. Email him at khaas@rockrivercurrent.com or follow him on Twitter at @KevinMHaas.