The Illinois Stewardship Alliance’s new Buy Fresh Buy Local directory feature more than 130 farmers, farmers markets, farm-to-table restaurants, and local food grocers that offer locally grown food in Illinois. Go to ilstewards.org to download a copy.

CENTRAL ILLINOIS

Online directory is guide to buying local food

The Illinois Stewardship Alliance has released a new Buy Fresh Buy Local directory featuring more than 130 farmers, farmers markets, farm-to-table restaurants, and local food grocers that offer locally grown food in Illinois. The guide includes central Illinois farms.

The directory includes a new and improved map, searchable index, and guide on how to buy whole animals. Go to ilstewards.org to download a copy.

The Illinois Stewardship Alliance is a non-profit organization with members across the state who are re-building local food systems through community gardens, farm-to-school programs, sustainable agriculture and more. The alliance’s goal is to make it easy for the public to buy local and find the farms and local food businesses.

The Buy Fresh Buy Local Central Illinois chapter, a program of the alliance, is a local foods campaign to connect central Illinois farmers with community members, restaurants, retailers, and other local buyers. Visit buyfreshbuylocalcentralillinois.org to learn more about the Central Illinois chapter.

The public is invited to join the alliance in its work. For more information about the directory or the Illinois Stewardship Alliance, call 217-528-1563 or email molly@ilstewards.org

Residents asked to identify top health needs

The Partnership for a Healthy Community (Healthy HOI), representing hospitals, clinics, public health, higher education, and social service agencies, is conducting a community health needs assessment in each of the communities it serves. Residents in the tri-county area can participate in an online survey or a paper survey to help identify the most important health issues impacting individuals and families.

Health officials hope that the results of the survey will help them understand and focus on the challenges and opportunities unique to each community in Peoria, Tazewell and Woodford county.

The survey, as part of the assessment process, is conducted every three years and provides a baseline to address identified health needs.

The anonymous community survey is available now through Aug. 31. Both English and Spanish versions are available online and at area locations.

Online address: www.HealthyHOI.org

Paper copies are available at the Peoria, Tazewell and Woodford County Health Departments.

PEORIA

Uber delivering food in Peoria area

Uber will now deliver food to you in addition to driving you to a destination.

Uber Eats has launched its food ordering and delivery service in the Central Illinois area after weeks of speculation that it was forthcoming.

More than a dozen Peoria area restaurants are now listed on the app, including Pizza Works, Steak and Fries, Fieldhouse Bar and Grill, Pho Noodle House and Hacienda El Mirador. Other restaurants that will be available on the service are Brienzo’s Wood Fired Pizza, Novu Sushi, Smoky Burgers & Frites, and many more. There’s even a McDonald’s location listed on the app. The app functions in a similar manner with the customer ordering form the app and using their current location as the Uber driver’s navigation for the delivery.

HOI fair continuing through July 21

The Heart of Illinois fair is doing what it has done since 1949: offering agricultural exhibits, children’s activities, entertainment, truck and tractor pulls, horse shows, large midway, food, and other free exhibits. The fair continues through July 21 at the Fairgrounds at Exposition Gardens, 1601 W. Northmoore Road. Admission is $10 per day for adults. For more information about the fair’s scheduled events, go to heartofillinoisfair.com.

Northmoor Road work resumes after fair

Northmoor Road, between University and Allen Road, reopened for use during the Heart of Illinois fair, will close again for construction on July 23.

After the project’s fall 2019 completion, Northmoor Road will have been rebuilt between Allen Road and University Street. The road will have three vehicular lanes (one lane in each direction and a center turn lane), curbs and gutters, a sidewalk on the north side of the road, a biking/walking path on the south side of the road, ornamental street lighting, trees and native plants. This $10.5 million project is supported by approximately $7 million in federal grants.

Workshop will guide businesses to seed money

The latest information on the Small Business Innovation Research and the Small Business Technology Transfer programs will be presented in a free half-day workshop July 18. The session will be held 10 a.m.-2 p.m. at Peoria Next Innovation Center, 801 W. Main St., Peoria. These programs help startup businesses get seed money for projects. Register at forms.illinois.edu/sec/1734054. 

Numbers show airport use continues to soar

The amount of air travel at Peoria’s airport continues to soar, with new numbers showing that more people flew through Peoria’s airport in June than at any other time in history.

The Gen. Wayne A. Downing Peoria International Airport saw 64,784 passengers last month, according to a recent release from the airport. That surpasses the record set just three months previously in March, and a 3.4 percent increase over that passenger total.

The facility is on track to surpass its best annual total as well, meaning that more than 641,671 passengers are expected to use the airport this year.

City council to hear student housing plan

A proposal for a major student housing project will go before the Peoria City Council at its July 24 meeting, after it was unanimously approved recently by the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission.

The five-building project, proposed for Main Street not far from Bradley University, would house 300 people on a 2.4-acre site between Garfield and Orange streets on a block bordered by Main and Russell streets. Plans call for one five-story building of apartments on Main Street that would include some retail space plus a cluster of three-story townhouse buildings. The site’s parking lot will have space for 103 vehicles.

While Bradley University is not part of the project, students and students at the medical school Downtown as the primary target market although units would be available to anyone. Plans call for the project to open for the fall semester of 2020. 

–Peoria County News Briefs–