By Elliot Jackson
The city of Salida got to do one of the things it does best in September. To welcome a special group of economic developers, it threw a walkabout of its art galleries and local businesses for the 300+ participants of the Heart of the Rockies Region Rural Philanthropy Days (RPD). The walking tour introduced the RPD conference, including representatives of some of Colorado’s largest nonprofit funders, to Salida in its newly-minted status as a Colorado Creative District. The downtown business owners, in their turn, welcomed the after-hours customers.
“This was something different,” according to Brett Haydin, co-chair of the steering committee for the RPD, whose 45 members were drawn from across a five-county region. “We wanted to give the (conference) participants, many of whom were coming from Denver and the Front Range, a sense of what it was like to be in our rural community.”