New podcast available

Will showcase West Liberty community

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West Liberty residents have a new podcast available to them to learn more about how businesses, organizations and individuals are coming together to make West Liberty a better place.

The podcast is named “Building Together” and had the first episode available on the WeLead website July 1.

Ken Brooks, West Liberty Economic Area Development (WeLead), said the podcast is going to be monthly with guest co-hosts talking about events in the community, new businesses coming to town or construction projects happening in town.

“This is a good way to convey the message but also taking a look at some of the behind the scenes of what makes West Liberty a special place,” he added. “We have so many wonderful community organizations.”

The podcast will also invite community organizations to come discuss events they may have coming up or just discuss what their group is, Brooks added.

Charles Brooke, West Liberty Chamber of Commerce Director, was the first guest co-host in July and for August Father Guillermo Trevino will be the guest co-host, he said.

“Our very first podcast had 70 downloads, which doesn’t seem like very much but for our very first episode I was blown away,” Brooks added. “That was twice as much people as I thought we would have.”

The podcast is available in English currently but Brooks would like to have a Spanish version of the podcast available as well, he said. The podcasts won’t be duplicated.

“Our Spanish speaking population here in West Liberty deserves their own fresh content so we don’t want to just recycle the original podcasts,” Brooks said. “The goal is find a permanent co-host that speaks Spanish better than I do.”

A part of the podcast features a segment called “Ask the Podcast,” which citizens can send questions to the WeLead podcast email at podcast@weleadiowa.org. If Brooks doesn’t know the answer to the question asked, he will find someone who will, he said.

For August, the question that was written was “when are we going to get an ice cream place?”

“The answer to that is, while the community would certainly welcome one, it’s not necessarily the priority now because we’ve got several places in town who are doing a really good job with product,” Brooks said.

Five young taste testers went to different businesses in town to try the ice cream product they had available. To find out what they thought, Brooks encourages you to download the podcast to listen to what they said.

“We’ve got really good descriptions,” Brooks said. “We talked to each kid at each place and got their thoughts on what flavor they were eating and their thoughts on it.”

If you have an idea or event you would like to have featured on an upcoming podcast episode, you can reach out to him at the podcast email.

“The podcast really serves three groups,” he said. “It serving our existing community members letting them know what’s going on. It’s serving our existing businesses having them spread the word about what their doing but it also is a great opportunity to share all the amazing things we have going in West Liberty to those that live outside the community.”

Brooks hopes the podcast will influence those outside the community to consider doing business here or possibly relocate here, he added.

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