Last week, nearly 100+ young professionals showed up to let their voice be heard and help craft a vision for the future of our community.

The City of Springfield recently held visioning sessions as part of its comprehensive planning process, Forward SGF, so when it came time to provide input during this critical phase, young professionals wanted to have a voice.

The Springfield community offers many opportunities for young professionals to have a seat at the table, but this may have been one of our favorites.

The City held three different visioning workshops for the community to attend, and more than 800 people took advantage. The Network wanted to play its part in getting as many young professionals at these workshops as possible; we held tailgate parties before the two evening workshops to encourage YPs to not go home first and risk not attending a workshop, but to come spend time with us and then go to the workshops together. The response was overwhelming.

Several main takeaways came out of these sessions:

• Young professionals truly care about the future of our community AND they want to make sure the community knows it!
• The community is excited for our future.
• Everyone is ready to take big, bold steps to get projects accomplished through this plan.
• Some of the main ideas discussed included beautification projects, trail connectivity, building a new convention center, and emphasizing outdoors everywhere.

Before these workshops, we knew we have the best young professionals around, but now there is no doubt. Our YPs are inspired and ready to make our community the best place in the country to live, work and play. We can’t wait to see how our community continues to grow and change in the next 20 years.