Success Stories

The place-based investment is core to EDA’s mission, with our team working closely with local community leaders to ensure EDA’s grants support targeted economic development based on each community’s unique needs. It’s not a one-size-fits-all approach, which allows EDA’s grants to be flexible, dynamic, and meet the moment that’s called for in each community. In Lubbock, Texas, that has translated into multiple EDA investments, as leaders turn a painful Air Force Base closure into economic opportunity for the region.

Frost Fire Park in Northern North Dakota has been driving tourism to the Pembina Gorge for nearly half a century. Located just five miles from the Canadian border, the weekend ski area attracts skiers and snowboarders from hundreds of miles away who not only enjoy winter sports but also frequent hotels, restaurants, and small businesses in the area. 

In 2017, Puerto Rico was devastated by back-to-back storms that resulted in Category 5-level destruction. More than 3,000 people lost their lives in Hurricanes Irma and Maria and the entire population was left without power. Total economic losses were estimated at $20 million.

Nestled in the densely forested Okanogan highlands of Eastern Washington, Deer Park’s fortunes were built on logging. But when the town’s last sawmill shut its doors, the community lost its long-time base industry and suddenly found itself with a need to economically “branch out.” Thanks to local ingenuity — backed by a $4.7 million grant from the Economic Development Administration (EDA) — this city of 3,600 people is celebrating an economic renaissance driving the creation of scores of new jobs and generating millions of dollars in private investment.

A project in New Mexico is aiming to fill a gap in support for Native American artisans and entrepreneurs. The Indian Pueblo Cultural Center (IPCC) in Albuquerque, New Mexico, showcases the accomplishments and history of the Pueblo people of New Mexico. It includes a museum highlighting cultural arts, educational opportunities, and space for daily artisans and dances.

Fishing has been the economic lifeblood of the Yup’ik people of western Alaska since time immemorial. After a catastrophic fire ripped through the Kwik'pak Fisheries salmon roe processing plant in Emmonak in March 2016, six Alaskan Native Villages along the Lower Yukon River found their economies in sudden peril. Kwik'pak Fisheries, an enterprise of the Native-owned Yukon Delta Fisheries Development Association, operates the only salmon processing plant in this section of Alaska’s vast, Unorganized Borough.

In the middle of a sea of cornfields in rural Iowa lies a spot that instantly sparks nostalgia in baseball fans everywhere -- the site of a 1989 hit movie Field of Dreams which coined the phrase “If you build it, he will come.”

Only about 5,500 people live in Zeeland, Michigan, but that number can triple during the workday as employees flock to several manufacturing businesses in the area.

Nurses play a vital role in society, serving as the eyes and ears of our hospitals and health care facilities....

Country singer Bob Gallion’s 1972 song “Walking Into Fresno” tells how lonely it can be walking in Fresno, California, in...