Grow Rocky Ford Economic and Community Development - Music at The Junction Interview


Description: A SECO News Interview about The Return of Music at The Junction with Grow Rocky Ford Economic and Community Development Director Marty Lee.

Grow Rocky Ford Economic and Community Development - Music at The Junction Interview

SECO News: This is Adrian Hart with seconews.org and Consulting With A Hart LLC with Grow Rocky Ford Economic and Community Development is Marty Lee, the director, how are we doing today Marty?

Grow Rocky Ford: We are doing very well, thank you Adrian.

SECO News: Yep, we've been running a little bit ragged here lately, working on bringing back music at the junction, I think that it's phenomenal to be working with organizations like yours where it's not just about economic development and community development. And a lot of what I'm doing with SECO News is really branding Southeast Colorado as a single community and The People of Southeast Colorado, and so a lot of what I'm trying to do is bring the people together, and that's totally the core values of what you're trying to do. So do you want to tell us a little bit about why you wanted to be involved with Music at The Junction?

Grow Rocky Ford: Sure. I wanted to be involved with Music at the Junction because you know I lived in La Junta for a long time before moving, around 20 years, before I moved to Rocky Ford. So Music at The Junction for years was a mainstay in La Junta and when Brad Swartz retired they kind of decided that it wasn't their cup of tea anymore that they didn't want to do it, but it had become such a mainstay of that community.

SECO News: Right.

Grow Rocky Ford: I wanted to see us see what we could do to make it, you know, like it used to be.

SECO News: Exactly.

Grow Rocky Ford: And I think we've done that, and, you know, the other reason I was really interested in doing this is because Rocky Ford has really struggled through COVID. It's time for us to get back to being a community; to get out of the house, for lack of a better term, we need to have a party. So that was my primary reason for getting back into wanting to do Music at the Junction.

SECO News: Awesome. And so long term it was a fundraiser; a portion of the proceeds went to Arkansas Valley Hospice, which was cool, that a core aspect of music of the junction was fundraising. And so what they did, I believe was the beer proceeds went to the hospice and it ended up being a sizable amount of money every year. But there was so much in cost with getting the big bands. So we've really changed our focus on it, and we aren't trying to bring a lot of people from outside of the area here, more so as we're trying to bring all the people of Southeast Colorado together to celebrate moving past COVID and to work towards building up a great cause, which is Grow Rocky Ford, Rocky Ford Economic Development and Community Development.

SECO News: So, thank you so much for engaging with us, and helping do Music at The Junction. Marty, a majority of the proceeds are going to benefit Rocky Ford Economic and Community Development.

Grow Rocky Ford: And actually it's going to benefit the programs of Economic and Community development. Right now we're working on a number of job training programs actually, in conjunction with the work we're doing with Small Town Project. We're launching an IT cohort of IT students in the next few weeks. It's 10 students and part of these funds go to support those things. We're getting ready to work with SBDC on bringing in CDL training and forklift training and welding training and those sorts of things into Rocky Ford, and construction training, and so these proceeds will go to help benefit those programs.

Grow Rocky Ford: So it's really not just a benefit to Rocky Ford Economic Development, it's a benefit to the development of Rocky Ford as a Community. Having a more qualified workforce that's ready to go to work that wants to be here. Our mission with Grow Rocky Ford is to provide a better quality of life for all the residents of Rocky Ford, and that can take us into, you know, we can look at the lineup of bands and musicians we have coming to this event this year. It's a very diverse group it's everything from Pop to Rock to Rap to Tejano to Electronic Fusion and Country Western, of course. All of that comes together in this one group so it's kind of a very diverse group for a very diverse group.

SECO News: All right. Very cool. We'll be talking to you more about Music at the Junction here on seconews.org. We're going to be hearing you on the radio and we're going to read about it in the papers, and we're going to be bringing the people across Southeast Colorado together for the benefit for The People of Southeast Colorado.

SECO News: It's like dad said, Son, "Life Isn't a Party." And the argument is, sometimes it can be. So let's have a good party in Rocky Ford, come on down to the Arkansas Valley Fairgrounds to celebrate Independence Day Weekend with Music at The Junction.

Support The Return of Music at The Junction and The People of Southeast Colorado by Attending The Event, Tickets Now Available:

https://musicatthejunction.com/events/music-at-the-junction-july-3rd-2021/?

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http://seconews.org/music-at-the-junction/