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Editorial
Goshen is going against the grain. While federal government spending is being cut to the core, with most grants going unfunded, Goshen found itself earlier this month as the recipient of a $1.25 million grant to cover the costs of constructing a community center. Gov. Glenn Younkin made the announcement of the grant on Feb. 6.
Goshen was awarded the grant through the Community Development Block Grant program – federal funding that is administered by the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development. The funding is to pay for an addition to the new town office building, recently relocated into the town’s original school building on Maury River Road, between the town’s rescue squad and fire department buildings.
The Goshen Community Center, as envisioned, may house facilities for a number of services providers such as the Rockbridge Area Health Center, Valley Program for Aging Services, the Rockbridge Area Relief Association, the Rockbridge Area YMCA and Blue Ridge Legal Services. These critical services could provide a lifeline to folks in this remote community in the northwest corner of Rockbridge County, just across the county lines from Augusta and Bath.
Remarkably, this is not the only recent example of federal largesse being bestowed on the greater Goshen community. In August, the governor announced that a $1 million Industrial Revitalization Fund federal grant that targets blighted properties was being awarded for transforming the long-vacant Stillwater Worsted Mills plant into a museum and restoration shop for various historic vehicles and machines, as well as a manufacturing plant for tiny log cabin homes.
The Stillwater plant, once the largest employer in Goshen, operated for nearly 75 years before shutting down in 2003. Local businessman Lee Harris applied for the grant and is leading the efforts in this restoration project. The federal funding for this program is also being administered though the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development.
Goshen was also successful last year in securing two $20,000 grants to be put toward beginning the work of upgrading the town’s water system. Playing a critical role in Goshen’s success in securing the multitude of grants has been the Central Shenandoah Planning District Commission, whose personnel have been used to write the grant applications.
Even so, what are we to make of the Goshen community’s good fortune in securing federal funding while elsewhere, across the country, at the behest of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, federal spending is being slashed at unprecedented levels, services cut and jobs eliminated? As a letter writer points out elsewhere in today’s newspaper, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, from which the CDBG funds originate, is among DOGE’s budget-cutting targets.
Is Goshen just plain lucky? Does it have connections to influential people in high places of government? Or, did the applications simply make compelling cases for government assistance?
We would like to believe the latter is true. Goshen Town Council members have put forth much time and effort to make the town’s case for federal funding for a community center. Various services providers have come onboard to support the idea. Harris made a strong case for transforming a blighted property into a museum to showcase railroad history and to house a manufacturer of a novel and useful product.
We think these are good ideas well worth pursuing. We hope that the federal largesse promised comes to fruition and that the push to halt federal spending of any kind doesn’t prevent Goshen and its citizens from being the beneficiaries of this government assistance.
Our sincere hope is that a revival of Goshen, with assistance from the federal government, becomes a reality.
