If you've just stumbled across The 812 Show, welcome! It's a snapshot of the establishment in Bloomington and Monroe County, Indiana. In our more than 200 episodes, we've tackled issues like housing, transportation, animal welfare, economic development, and tax assessment. We've interviewed elected officials -- everyone from the mayor to the coroner -- we've talked with, appointed officials, members of boards and commissions, members of nonprofits, and then some. Throughout 2024 and 2025, we learned an awful lot from an awful lot of people.

We're going on an extended hiatus; more on that in this last mini-episode of Season 4. But we remain proud of our work. Subscriptions have been turned off, but episodes continue to be available on our website at the812show.org, as well as wherever you get podcasts. Thank you for trying our show, and for wanting to learn what makes your community tick -- to hear about the officers, public bodies, processes and organizations that make Bloomington and Monroe County the decent places to live that they are.

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A production of Plateia Media ©2024-5. All rights reserved.

We're still trying to wrap our heads around CDFIs -- community development financial institutions -- and this time we think we've cracked the code.

We welcome back John Zody, the executive director of CDFI-Friendly Bloomington. He was last on the show in May 2024; for his followup he's brought along their program coordinator Emma Yoder, to further break down the concept of mission-based lending.

CDFIs are not like regular banks; they don't hold people's money. They only loan money to individuals and entities whose projects fulfill their often non-profit missions. Our guests at CDFI-Friendly Bloomington, are a non-profit-lender-wrangling organization, a kind of coordinator for financing for that community project you're so eager to get off the ground.

And there's a lot of money out there being offered by mission-based lenders, who are often far from Bloomington -- but our guests also have money direct FROM the city of Bloomington to loan out. All that money wants to be applied to good works to be done here in town.

We talk about why banks can be a bottleneck to the physical development of a city despite the wishes it may have expressed in its comprehensive plan. And we talk about borrowers that CDFI-Friendly Bloomington is working with: housing providers like Bloomington Cooperative Living, small businesses, and providers of childcare.

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Bloomington has won two Gold Medals for its Parks Department. It's not just because of nice facilities like Switchyard Park or the B-Line Trail. Sure, a city needs to set aside physical places for greenery et al. But land doesn't program itself.

Hence the phrase "Parks...AND Recreation." Today we speak with Leslie Brinson, the director of the Recreation Division of the city Parks and Recreation Department. She tells us about the several venues that the division programs, and its many types of programs, including community gardens, concerts, movies, the Fourth of July parade, kids' programs, and the long-running Farmers' Market.

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A production of Plateia Media ©2024-5. All rights reserved.