BASEC Expands Service Area
BASEC (Beadle and Spink Enterprise Community) recently announced they have expanded their service area, effective immediately.
The new areas being serviced include 3 new communities: Brentford, Conde, and Turton, and 9 townships: La Priaire, Beotia, Conde, Tetonka, Benton, Olean, Clifton, Sumner, and Turton.
“We have had a lot of phone calls over the years asking for our services in areas we don’t currently serve, so we wanted to expand the people we could help,” BASEC Executive Director Amy Hofer said.
Currently, BASEC will be offering loan products only to the new areas, but they hope to be able to add community development options in the future.
BASEC Board President LeAnne Bawek stated, “The BASEC board is excited to be extending BASEC’s services to additional communities. This is something we have been considering for quite a while, and we feel our staff and board are ready to serve these new areas. BASEC is here to help our rural communities thrive. Our staff and board members welcome these community leaders and members to call with questions or concerns they may have, we will do our best to help or connect them with someone who can. We can’t wait to see what ideas and dreams walk in the door!”
The overall expansion will happen in a series of 3 phases. Phase 1 includes serving the communities and townships listed above and is already in effect.
Phase 2 will expand the BASEC service area further by adding the remaining areas of Spink County not currently served, and the final phase will grow the BASEC service area to include all of Beadle County.
“We do not have any plans to serve Redfield or Huron, although we do get calls from those towns,” Hofer said. “As much as we’d like to serve the people in those towns, we do not have the capacity to serve those areas at this time.”
BASEC often refers people outside of their area to the programs available at Grow South Dakota. Grow South Dakota is a statewide non-profit organization that provides programs and loan products to advance housing, community, and economic development.
An additional resource for Spink County is Grow Spink. BASEC is excited about working more closely with Grow Spink to expand available resources.
“Grow Spink and BASEC have collaborated in a number of successful projects over the years,” Gianna Schieffer, Director of Grow Spink said. “We have referred community members in the southern portion of Spink County to BASEC in the past and are excited that these services are now going to be offered to the rest of the county. BASEC will be a great addition to our surrounding area.”