Des Moines, Iowa — USDA is sending Rural Development loans and grants to a project in Sioux County and one each in Appanoose, Pocahontas, and Winneshiek counties.
State Rural Development Director, Theresa Greenfield, says they work with the local rural electric cooperatives, or the city municipal cooperative or the telecoms.
The Hawarden Municipal Utilities received a 124-thousand-dollar grant to expand a revolving loan fund. This project will provide financing through the city of Hawarden to five businesses with the hopes of increasing local employment opportunities.
A couple of the projects involved health care. The Corn Belt Power Cooperative received a loan of more than one-point-two million dollars for the Pocahontas Community Hospital. The hospital plans to renovate 12 patient exam rooms, the pharmacy, reception areas and build an addition for a new public restroom and reception room. The other is a nearly 13 million dollar loan and one million dollar grant to Aase Haugen Homes in Decorah to build a nursing home with assisted living and dementia care units. Greenfield says these projects will help fill some voids in health care in rural Iowa.
The other project is a two-million dollar pass-through loan to the Northeast Missouri Electric Power Cooperative to fund a material flow system for animal and human products at a facility in Centerville, Iowa.
Greenfield says Iowa has nearly 40 cooperatives across the state that they partner with.
