Guthrie CenterMain Street Iowa Challenge Grant awards presentation in Des Moines, Thursday, November 6, 2025.

An organization in Guthrie Center received a grant yesterday.

Main Street Guthrie Center Director Becky Petersen says that the group applied for the Main Street Iowa Challenge Grant, and were awarded the full $50,000 that they asked for. She shares that they applied for the grant to help revitalize a downtown building, and that they’ve had help from several other organizations in town to do so. Guthrie Center Economic Development President Dennis Flanery tells Raccoon Valley Radio what it means to have Main Street Guthrie Center as part of the community, and how this particular grant helps the community.

“We’re fortunate to be a Main Street community. The development group acquired the building a few months ago. It’s a building we’ve had our eyes on for a long period of time because it needed a lot of work and we felt we were the group that was in position to maybe fix it up. And so this grant will go a long ways towards allowing us to completely fix it up and get it back out on the market for some business to open up in our community.”

Main Street Guthrie Center President Steve Smith mentions that the organization’s goal and mission, like all other Main Street chapters, is to revitalize buildings in their community’s main business district and support businesses however they can. Flanery adds that while the Economic Development group had the funds available to revitalize the building, working with Main Street Guthrie Center to get the grant allows them to work on this downtown building, and use those already available funds to help the community in other ways, working to improve Guthrie Center as best they can.