GREENSBURG — If nothing else, the pandemic has proven people in many professions can easily work from home… as long as they’ve got a strong internet connection.
It’s lead to an exodus of sorts as professionals ponder moving away from the city now that they can keep their jobs and work remotely from virtually anywhere.
Officials in Greensburg, otherwise known as ‘Tree City,’ are working to attract virtual employees by incentivizing their transplant.
“Our community is full of great people that will help an individual who moves here, or their family, flourish and grow and be a part of the community,” Greensburg Mayor Joshua Marsh said. “How do we attract people to southeastern Indiana? What we’re doing is we’re showing those that maybe live in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, San Francisco — outside of the Midwest — that you can keep your job that you have, where you’re working remotely. You’re paying a very high cost of living, maybe in an unsafe environment, or the school systems aren’t great… (but) you can move here to Greensburg Indiana and we will set you up.”
The community of nearly 12,000 is growing up, and they’d like you and your family to be a part of it.
“Greensburg, Indiana, is a place that is on the move and we’re ready to welcome some new residences and neighbors to our community and a way we’re doing that is sort of through an incentive package,” Marsh said. “We’re proud of our incentive package and it really has some unique components to it as well that we worked out with MakeMyMove.”
The Indiana-based company, MakeMyMove, is a virtual marketplace that matches remote workers and their families to communities across the country. They recently awarded Greensburg its annual “Neighbors Makers” award for its innovative new program which incentivizes the transition for interested parties with a plethora of promotions including:
- $5,000 in moving expenses.
- Invitations to Greensburg’s non-profit fundraising events, including its annual Gala in support of Decatur County Memorial Hospital.
- Open invitations to home-cooked meals at neighbors’ homes.
- One-year membership to Greensburg’s local co-working space.
- One-year membership to the YMCA.
- Free gift cards to the farmers market.
- Free passes for theatrical performances at the Tree County Players.
- Free passes for boating and beaching at Lake Santee.
- and a special program, they call, “Grandparents on Demand”.
“I am willing to be a grandma to anyone’s child who needs that person in their life,” said Executive Director for the Decatur County Community Foundation Tami Wenning. “Our community is just really warm and welcoming to people and I just want people to come here and feel good about the choice that they made and not knowing the area. Not knowing who you could trust and there are a lot of trustworthy people but when you first move to a new town, you’re not gonna know that… but you can trust me.”
Wenning is not the city spokesperson, but maybe she should be. She says Greensburg’s greatest attraction is the people who call it home.
“We have so much to offer. We are a warm and friendly place,” Wenning said. “It’s a warm fuzzy feeling when you find out what your community’s capable of and this community is so giving it’s amazing.”
If you have reservations about the strength of the internet connection in southeastern Indiana: Don’t. The city has been working on its service in preparation for this program.
“The city of Greensburg is set up well to service those residences that need that capability to work remotely. We’re very glad to have a partnership with Great Plains Communication who serve fiber through a lot of our city,” Marsh said. “From the technology component, we’re ready to meet that demand to welcome these residences who need to work remotely and can do that from here.”
There is no cap to the number of people Greensburg is welcoming. Marsh hopes the program is so successful that a cap would need to be considered down the road.
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