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MSWB plans calendar app with help of grant
by Gregory R. Norfleet · News · April 24, 2014
Main Street West Branch wants to funnel all there is to see and do into a calendar app for your smartphone, and recently received word it got a state grant to make it happen.
Main Street Iowa awarded a $5,000 Business Innovation Grant that requires a match, which MSWB will supplement to reach its $10,000 total.
MSWB Program Director Mackenzie Krob said the state was so excited to award this grant that they already plan to make it a model for other Main Street communities. MSWB plans to roll out the app by this summer.
The $5,000 grant will be formally awarded to MSWB 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, April 29, when the city is visited by Main Street Iowa State Coordinator Michael Wagler and Iowa Economic Development Authority Community Development’s Tim Waddell and Leslie Leager.
“It was such an open-ended grant, and I thought we were right on the edge,” Krob said. “We have a really good relationship with (the Hoover Complex) and had a lot of ideas, so I credit the brainstorming that helped us write a really good application.”
She said the grant may not seems like a lot of money, but MSWB will be measuring its impact.
“To have this resource, and to have it used by other Main Street communities, I’m ecstatic we get to start it here in West Branch,” Krob said.
The idea comes from brainstorming with the Hoover Complex, MSWB Program Director Mackenzie Krob said. The groups wanted to help more people experience the city and visit the Hoover National Historic Site and Presidential Library-Museum, as well as shop downtown. That grew into creating a smartphone application program that listed a calendar of events.
The app will allow local businesses the ability to sign up to announce special events, like live music, special foods or “whatever else is going on,” Krob said.
MSWB plans to hire GoLocal to create the app; Krob met representatives of the Sacramento company while attending a Main Street convention in New Orleans, and described them as “down to earth people.”
MSI offered up to $100,000 in grants to Main Street communities, and 49 cities made about $200,000 in requests.
“It was very competitive,” Krob said.
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