[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 11]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 14544]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




     HONORING McLEAN COUNTY, ILLINOIS AS A COMMUNITY OF EXCELLENCE

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. JERRY WELLER

                              of illinois

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, June 10, 2003

  Mr. WELLER. I rise today to congratulate McLean County, Illinois, 
recipient of the 2003 Communities Can! Community of Excellence Award. 
Communities Can! is a program initiated by the Department of Health and 
Human Services, coordinated by the Georgetown University Center for 
Child and Human Development.
  The Community of Excellence Award is presented to only four 
communities each year for demonstrating their ability to efficiently 
collaborate and utilize resources provided by public and private 
programs for supporting young children and their families. McLean 
County has successfully tailored these complex programs to meet their 
specific needs.
  McLean County, a community of 154,000 people located in Central 
Illinois, received this honor for their innovation, flexibility, and 
the broad range of service and support they provide. Their approach is 
to identify the needs of families in the community, match those needs 
with appropriate service, and do so in a cost effective manner, which 
has produced great results.
  I am proud to represent McLean County, Illinois, and commend her 
citizens of for their hard work and the success it yielded, leading to 
their receiving the Community of Excellence award. I look forward to 
working with them as they enjoy future success, hopefully leading other 
communities to adopt the creative, effective service to needy families 
that our Nation needs to meet the challenges ahead.

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