Over the summer of 2017, most mornings and evenings found Cook County Chamber Executive Director Jim Boyd pulling a cedar Langford canoe on a trailer from City Hall to its daytime perch in front of Beaver House or back to its nightly home in the old fire truck bay at City Hall. The object was to raise money for the 2018 version of the Cook County Great Place Project. 

It worked, Boyd reports. After expenses, roughly $11,000 is available to fund Great Place grants for 2018. Applications for those 2018 Great Place grants are being accepted until March 15, 2018.

The Great Place Project is a partnership between the Cook County Chamber and Sawtooth Mountain Clinic's Moving Matters program. The 2018 Great Place Project is the fifth.  GPP provides small grants to individuals, businesses and organizations to develop outdoor projects that enhance the beauty and attraction of the outdoor built environment of Cook County. For the clinic's Moving Matters team, the intention is to encourage healthy outdoor play and exercise. For the Chamber, the goal is creating a more pleasing place that draws visitors back, building a more pleasant environment for residents to enjoy, and creating a sense of cohesive community across Cook County.

Great Place Project grants over the first four years have gone to projects ranging from a community paint-by-number set of murals for the side of Birchbark Books & Gifts, an outdoor ping pong table for the Grand Marais library lawn, a bench for the Hegg Wildflower Sanctuary, a Little Free Library for the Schroeder Town Hall, the iconic Plaid Moose in Lutsen and many others. Additional information on previous Great Place Projects can be found under the Great Place Project tab at www.becausemovingmatters.org

For 2018, the $11,000 raised through the canoe raffle will be used to fund grants of up to $1,000, Boyd said.

  More information on grant requirements is on the 2018 application, which is available for download on the Chamber Website (http://www.cookcountychamber.org/great_place_project). It also is available in hard copy from the Chamber office in City Hall at 15 N. Broadway. For questions about the Great Place     

See the Great Place Project flyer in the attached PDF.