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City’s teamwork and volunteers are vital

In recent years, Vandalia has stepped up its commitment to better present the history of this community, this region and this state. In turn, those efforts have improved the experiences of people from other towns and states who stop here to learn about Vandalia, Fayette County and Abraham Lincoln.

All that has been accomplished in that area is due to teamwork, with coalitions of city officials and numerous volunteers joining together for the greater good of the community. The grant of more than $100,000 recently awarded to the National Road Association of Illinois is the latest indication of what teamwork can accomplish in our community.

With the grant funds, the National Road Association will add a number of tourist-friendly features to its interpretive center, all of which will help to tell the story of this country’s first federally funded interstate highway.

A grant award of this type does not come without a lot of hard work (much of which has been done by local volunteers) and teamwork.

Vandalia officials have been a key part of the center project, providing at a nominal annual fee the building that the National Road uses to present our history.

Equally important are those volunteers who have not only pulled together information needed for the grant application, but also staff the interpretive center.

The things that are being accomplished by the National Road Association of Illinois follows the work done by Vandalia’s Looking for Lincoln Committee. That committee’s work showed those in other communities with Lincoln stories how to best tell their stories.

And, let’s not forget the teamwork and volunteerism that was responsible for preventing the closure of Vandalia Correctional Center five years ago.

Teamwork and volunteerism are two keys to making a community a great place to live. And here in Vandalia, we have a lot of people who exemplify that.

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