ROCHELLE – The City of Rochelle and Western Illinois University are set to begin sessions for their Rochelle “Revved Up” project next week.

The motto of the project is “Mapping the Future of Your Community” and it is a new community-wide campaign for Rochelle that is geared at creating involvement of residents to not only identify a vision for the future of the city but also to help execute a plan to achieve the goals.
The program will consist of five meetings from 6-9 p.m., starting Tuesday Sept. 10 and will continue each Tuesday night until the final meeting on Oct. 8. During these meetings, they will identify three to six high priority goals for the community along with an action plan for making them happen. Volunteers will then break into groups according to their interests to begin work on their goals and projects.

After seeing what this project has done for other communities, city officials are very excited for it to begin within their own.
“I am so excited to get started with this program,” exclaimed Jenny Thompson, City of Rochelle marketing and public relations manager. “Other communities in Illinois have had some really great successes in community beautification, recreational projects, new housing development, community events, etc.”
Communities in the region that have participated in the program include Durand, Elizabeth, Erie, Oregon, Savanna, Stockton and Walnut just to name a few.
Each of the meetings will be held at Hicks Hall, located at 709 4th Ave. in Rochelle. There are currently just over 40 volunteers signed up for the meetings and the city is stressing the importance to RSVP since there will be food served at each one. To RSVP contact Jenny Thompson by calling 815-561-2006 or by email at jthompson@rochelleil.us.
“With the help of WIU, this process is going to give us direction on how to define goals and strategies on how to generate and maintain the momentum to complete them as we work to continue improving the quality of life here in Rochelle,” Thompson said.