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Kane County reports ARPA-funded tourism marketing and manufacturing workforce efforts
Summary
County staff told the Jobs Committee that ARPA dollars supported expanded convention-and-visitors marketing by Elgin and Aurora, and funded manufacturing supports including a 20-company "lighthouse" cohort and inclusion camps for young adults with disabilities.
Mark Van Kirkoff, staff member, said the Kane County Jobs Committee received an update on American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA)–funded initiatives during its July 11 meeting, describing work to support tourism marketing and manufacturing workforce development. “I just have a a couple, updates I wanted to make on some of our ARPA, funded projects related to economic development and jobs,” Van Kirkoff said.
The most immediate item was funding to two convention and visitors bureaus based in Elgin and Aurora. County staff said the bureaus have broadened the communities they promote — adding Geneva, Elburn and Hampshire, among others — so that, together, they now cover nearly every community in Kane County. Van Kirkoff said those organizations primarily use hotel/motel-tax dollars that state rules expect to target visitors from outside a roughly 50-mile area, and that the county’s ARPA contribution allowed the bureaus to market across the broader Chicago metro.
The committee also heard that ARPA money went to manufacturing supports administered through the Illinois Manufacturing Excellence Center (IMEC). IMEC used county funds for two linked efforts: a lighthouse-manufacturer cohort that enrolled 20 companies, and a workforce-pipeline effort focused on nontraditional hiring pathways. Committee members were told the 20-member cohort is expected to complete its work in the fall and that the new Kane County Economic Development Corporation plans to continue the program and add about five more firms.
John Grueling, a founding board member of the Kane County Economic Development Corporation, described the workforce pipeline work as including informational workshops on hiring people with disabilities and other nontraditional pools, but said that while workshops were well attended, moving companies to the next step of hiring remained difficult. To widen placement options, staff described recent partnerships with local organizations: the Parent Alliance Employment Project (based in DuPage County and active at Project SEARCH at Northwestern Medicine Delnor Hospital), the Fabricators & Manufacturers Association (FMA) and its Sparkforce program, Little Friends, and Elgin Community College.
Van Kirkoff described a recent inclusion camp held at facilities used by Project SEARCH, where about eight young adults on the autism spectrum or with other disabilities participated in classroom instruction, manufacturing tours and hands-on assembly-line work. “They did an entire order, and they did very effectively,” he said, describing packaging, scanning and palletizing work performed by camp participants.
Committee members asked whether the visitors guides and camp materials were available digitally; staff said the bureaus publish both print and digital guides, and that another inclusion camp was scheduled for July. Committee members also heard that the Delnor Project SEARCH program cited at the meeting receives support from WIOA funds.
No committee votes were taken on these programs; staff said they will report back as programs continue and as the Economic Development Corporation assumes program responsibilities.
