Community Development Planner Aims To Nurture Falmouth's Sense Of Connection
In October 2020, a year after giving birth to her first child, Michaela Shoemaker graduated from Rutgers University with a master’s degree in public administration. At the time, she was about a year and a half into her new job as Falmouth’s Community Development Planner and the entire country was in the throes of a worldwide pandemic.
Fast-forward to the present day and Ms. Shoemaker has become a significant figure in the town’s planning department. She had previously worked in Hanover as the town planner and during her tenure there, started taking courses online at Rutgers University in pursuit of her master’s degree in public administration. Ms. Shoemaker, who now lives in Marion, said that despite the challenging circumstances, everything she has done so far has been worth it to get her to where she is now.
“I think at the time you kind of just put your head down and you do it,” she said. “But, you know, it was interesting because my capstone, my whole thesis was about place making, about communities building places for people to go to—like playgrounds at parks and open walkway streets where cafés can be. And as I’m writing all of this and talking to people about art exhibits they’ve opened in communities, everything is shutting down. So I was like, these are two very different things that are happening at the same time.”
The COVID-19 pandemic posed unusual challenges for Falmouth, a town full of small businesses and budding community development projects. So when a grant from the commonwealth’s department of housing and community development became available for municipalities impacted by COVID, the planning department knew it was essential to file for eligibility.
Although the commonwealth initially lost the application, Falmouth’s planning department was able to secure funding during the second round of grants after the federal government made additional funds available.
The grant itself is multifaceted and has helped the town recover from the impacts of the pandemic. One part of the grant is in partnership with Falmouth’s EDIC to provide small business grants up to $10,000 for qualifying small businesses that showed proof of significant economic losses due to COVID-19. So far, 12 small businesses have been approved for grant money.
“It’s been a really great tool, and we’ve actually received some really amazing feedback from some of the businesses just saying how helpful it is,” Ms. Shoemaker said. “They’ve used it for things like paying employee wages to rent to buying protective equipment to kind of any other host of items they could use it for.”
The other part of the grant involves the Falmouth Service Center. The grant has allowed the town to provide the service center with $160,000 to continue providing food to residents who were experiencing hardship.
“Obviously, COVID had huge financial impacts on a lot of people, and that also impacted how much food people were able to buy,” Ms. Shoemaker said. “More people were using social services, which is why they’re there, but obviously that has a cost. We were able to provide some money for Falmouth Service Center to continue to provide more food for Falmouth residents.”
The Falmouth Service Center is also putting some of the grant money toward covering the costs of education for those interested in pandemic-related vocational training, like nursing or public health.
While the grant has been a pivotal part of Falmouth’s economic recovery from the pandemic, the issue of rebuilding a sense of community remains at the forefront of the planning department’s mission.
“It was interesting because for a while there had been such a push on that ‘making communities a community again’ sense, and then everyone was drawing back into themselves,” Ms. Shoemaker said. “It was relevant in a strange way that they were playing off of each other to see how they would unfold. And I still don’t think we have a clear answer because not everything is reopening yet.”
Despite all of the pandemic-related difficulties, Ms. Shoemaker is proud of the hard work her office has put in over the past year.
“COVID definitely had a big impact on the town and everything, but the planning office, between Tom [Bott] and Melinda [Maranchie], I think the three of us had it down to a well-oiled machine,” Ms. Shoemaker said. “Something I don’t even think the developers were aware of is that the state actually put a freeze on the timelines [that the planning departments use to plan and execute projects]. They said, ‘Because of COVID and all that’s going on, you don’t have to follow those timelines.’ But our office, from the beginning, said we’re going to continue to follow those timelines. I kind of take it as a point of pride that no projects were delayed. We really tried to adhere to those timelines, regardless of whether there was a freeze or not.”
As the world begins to open up over time, Ms. Shoemaker is hopeful that Falmouth will be able to pick up right where it left off and continue to nurture its sense of community.
“I think, after isolation, people are realizing the importance of a community in whatever sense that may be for them, be it family or friends or meeting parents in a similar age group with them or walking groups,” she said. “The more input people have in a community, the more people use a community, the stronger it will be. As public employees, that’s why we have public meetings. We want people’s input, we want people to have a say in things. Ideally, we always hope people will be as engaged as possible and partake in community events. Even going out to restaurants and shopping at the mom and pop stores on Main Street, you want to see people involved in their community.”