The Current Vision of Crawford County

The challenges Crawford County faces are significant: unemployment, lack of educational attainment beyond high school, workforce skill needs, decreasing population, a remaining aging population, duplication of services causing inefficiencies in government and social services agencies and a rising use and demand of public assistance.

Crawford: 20/20 Vision has been established to determine specific challenges within the realms of the aforementioned topics, to form strategic solutions based on community input and to ultimately implement an unprecedented plan to take action to improve Crawford County.

So, to target where we must go from here, we must look at where we are ... right?

Here are the facts:
· According to the Ohio Department of Development, Crawford County is a distressed county
· Population is down six percent since 2000 – young people are leaving, and population is aging
· Manufacturing employment is down 26 percent in the last decade – it’s 36 percent of local economy and 44 percent of all county payroll
· Only 10 percent of people in Crawford County have attained a bachelor’s degree or higher, while 66 percent have attained a high school diploma or below
· Seventeen percent of Crawford County’s population is on food stamps
· Nearly 20 percent of people under 18 are at the poverty level in Crawford County

The facts may be daunting, but the future doesn't have to be. You can help shape Crawford County into a place with more business opportunities, more public safety, more government efficiency, higher educational attainment and a better quality of life by participating in the Crawford: 20/20 Vision initiative. As Mohandas Gandhi said, “be the change you want to see in the world.”