(Atlantic) Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley and Iowa Character Counts presented the Southwest Iowa Planning Council with the Robert D. and Billie Ray Center’s Character Counts 2022 Organization of Character Award on Thursday afternoon at its facility in Atlantic.
A secular, non-partisan group founded Character Counts in 1992, teaching school-age children the six pillars; trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, and citizenship.
Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says Character Counts gets the most bang for its buck at the grade school level, teaching young people how to respect each other.
Scott Raecker, Executive Director of The Robert D. and Billie Ray Center at Drake University, says the good character is not partisan, does not have political boundaries, and everyone has an opportunity to get better regarding character issues.
Raecker says Character Counts is the longest-running bi-partisan resolution in the country’s history and today serves over 8 million youth worldwide with the Character Counts Initiative.
John McCurdy, Executive Director of the Southwest Iowa Planning Council, speaking at the ceremony, stated SWIPCO is a council of governments serving eight counties in southwest Iowa, providing a wide variety of services, with 100 employees, most working in the Southwest Iowa Transit Agency.
Southwest Iowa Planning Council’s (SWIPCO) goals are to promote regional cooperation and to serve the counties and cities within their region with community and economic development activities to improve the quality of life for all residents in Southwest Iowa.
The services include the public transit system in our eight-county region and the southwest Iowa housing trust fund that provides safe, affordable housing and expands housing opportunities in the region. The RPA 13 offers technical assistance and transportation planning in a four-county area and multiple types of planning and technical assistance to our cities and counties, including writing plans, grant applications, project management, codes, and ordinances.
SWIPCO is also the designated economic development area for a six-county region and provides funding assistance to new and existing businesses through our Business Revolving Loan Fund.
