Since September 2017, I have been volunteering through the GroRoCo initiative. This is a community-member effort to advance the interests of the entirety of Rowan County. These general interests are the foci of a number of groups, including education, marketing and more.

My primary participation has been on the Entrepreneurship & Innovation Group (EIG). If you come to the West End Plaza this Saturday between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m., you can see the first of what I hope will be an annual event.

“The Next Big Idea” draws together our public schools, all the colleges in the county, business people humble and greater, and others to encourage growth from within.

It even draws in Salisbury’s own People Growing Together Toastmasters Club, which has offered coaching to participating students of South Rowan High School, and will be a second judging element at the “pitch your business idea” event.

I have only lived here for 12 years, but this is the first time I have seen this kind of reaching-out, coming-together broad cooperation. No single issue or single project can do what we can when diverse interests pull together. Please come Saturday, and see what synergy can do.

Maybe even go to the polls there at the mall and help retain the current commissioners who have established the atmosphere GroRoCo and the IDEA Center have grown from: Greg Edds, Judy Klusman and Jim Greene.

Saturday is the last day of early voting. You can vote at the mall while you’re there, from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.

— Herbert Maier

Salisbury