A Corridor of Volunteers

I’ve always felt that Iowan’s volunteered more than the average Joes.  Now it’s been proven. 

Iowa Ranks No 6 in the nation for volunteer rates; six Iowa cities make Top 50 List

2008 was a memorable year for many reasons: The tornado, the flood and the tremendous effort of Iowa volunteers. It is another demonstration of what many in this state already know and what people who are new to the Corridor discover after arriving – Iowans are committed, caring and compassionate. Pick a topic, any topic from disasters to arts and culture, from the environment to locally-grown food – Iowans understand service and serving others for the greater good.

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Kick off the Holiday Season with Cedar Rapids’ 4th Annual Fire and Ice Festival

The Cedar Rapids Downtown District and Freedom Festival are presenting this year’s Fire & Ice Festival on Saturday December 6.

Things to note for this year include a new parade route, free carriage rides, children’s train rides, huge balloons in the parade, and much more!

Hoopla: A new publication shares the passion for the Cedar Rapids/Iowa City corridor

I recently stumbled across a new publication created by, and for, young professionals – Hoopla.

Hoopla isn’t about professional journalism. It isn’t about us telling you what’s cool. You know what’s hot. So tell us what rocks, where the coolest place to eat is, who makes the meanest martini.

The magazine appears to have been started by some fresh, young corridor lovers that want to help get the word out about what makes the corridor so cool. Since that’s also what we’re trying to do here at Discover the Corridor, I am excited to have another group out there telling the “why it’s great to live here” story!

Looking for a job? Try Iowa City!

In a time when unemployment rates seem to be skyrocketing and lead stories on the news tend to be about bailouts and layoffs, seeing Iowa City rated as on of the 30 best cities to find a job last week by CareerBuilder.com was a nice surprise. Especially for local job hunters!

According to the article, job seekers are much better off to look for employment in cities such as Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Idaho Falls, Idaho, and our own Iowa City, Iowa than New York, Chicago or Los Angles.

Why? These cities registered some of the lowest unemployment rates in September 2008 – something very few other metro areas can say. Unemployment rates were higher in 349 of the 369 U.S. metropolitan areas surveyed, which means 92 percent of cities have seen an increase in their unemployment rates.