Colleen Landkamer, state director of USDA Rural Development in Minnesota, just published a nice story on MinnPost highlighting the difference that USDA funding has made to some Minnesota towns. One of my favorite stories, the Adrian e-Pharmacy was specifically highlighted, but the following projects were mentioned as well…

• $330 million to help over 2,600 individuals and families buy a home or refinance existing home loans;

• $195 million to deliver high-speed broadband Internet services to 164,000 rural homes, 11,500 businesses and 685 essential community facilities;

• $85 million to improve or replace 26 water and wastewater treatment systems;

• $36 million to provide loan guarantees that allowed nine businesses to create or save about 750 jobs;

• $31 million to build or repair 33 essential community facilities such as hospitals, community centers and libraries;

• $1 million in Rural Business Enterprise Grants to assist small rural businesses with gap financing.

Not all of these touch broadband – but it doesn’t take a be stretch to think of ways that they could or that broadband could help with some of the not-so-broadband projects. It’s also interesting to see the emphasis put on broadband by tallying the amounts received in each segment.