Decorah will not be a "Blue Zones" community

Decorah has not made the cut to be picked as a finalist community in the Iowa Blue Zones Project.

Eleven communities were selected Friday to receive site visits from the Blue Zones Project, a program to make Iowa the healthiest state in the country.  The eleven are Ames, Cedar Falls, Cedar Rapids, Clinton, Davenport, Mason City, Muscatine, Ottumwa, Sioux City, Spencer and Waterloo.

In late February the Blue Zones Project Team will begin visiting the 11 finalist communities in a series of site visits.  Those visits will wrap up in March and the first round of sites will be announced in May.

In the first application round in November of 2011, 84 communities, including Decorah, indicated an interest in becoming Blue Zones Project demonstration site.  Of these 84 communities, 58 were asked to submit a comprehensive application. On January 4th, 54 communities, including Decorah, submitted their applications to become a demonstration site. A team of Decorah community leaders had prepared an official application to be chosen as a Blue Zones community.