When we first launched Growing Small Towns, we did it with a bus tour. We loaded a bunch of business professionals from the Fargo-Moorhead area onto a bus and held them hostage for eight ours (okay, not really, they were completely willing participants!) and we did a tour of the area, visited local businesses and our building, and had such a ball that a bus trip of some sort has become a repeat event.    It’s a flagship thing for GST and one of our favorites because of how unique it is, and the magic that happens when you get different kinds of people together, get them out of their comfort zones, and drive them around rural America for a bit.    This episode features four bus tour participants (some multi-year participants!) and they’re here to talk about how they even heard about the tour, what they loved most about it, why it’s such a unique experience, and other things they learned while sort of captive on a bus for hours with a bunch of people they didn’t really know In this episode, we hear from: 

• Dr. Ruchi Joshi Bhardwaj, Senior Program Manager of Education & Research at Grand Farm
• Lee Schwartz, Marketing Director at North Dakota State College of Science and Founder of Small Town Labs
• Leah Reed, Operations Manager at Do Good Better Consulting
• Emma McIntyre, Manager of Development and Partnerships at Folkways

  Links and Resources Mentioned: A whole episode about the bus tour: https://www.growingsmalltowns.org/post/episode87 Lee was a guest! Hear his episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiWP2iyctUA