MOUNT VERNON — The next generation is also a component of the Fredericktown community’s future.

According to its Web site, the mission of the Fredericktown Community Development Foundation is to facilitate and foster community growth and prosperity and to meet effectively its citizens needs for the 21st century through intelligent planning, development and organization, while maintaining and respecting the traditions and heritage of the Fredericktown community.

In January 2005, the FCDF listed several objectives to accomplish as it created and implemented its vision for the future. One of those objectives was to stop the brain drain — Fredericktown students leaving the community — by creating jobs that would require higher skills and knowledge, and also providing that skill and knowledge to students while still in high school. To that end, a pre-engineering program was created at Fredericktown High School, a program which now has 30 to 40 students enrolled.

“Keeping the schools’ brain trust — that’s definitely a vision, and it seems to be working right along,” said Mark Blanchard, president of the FCDF.

Author Jack Schultz spoke about the passion needed by individuals and the community in order to bring about a vision for the community. Blanchard said the Fredericktown community has that passion.

“We have a growing attendance at [development foundation] meetings; about 25 to 30 people are there,” Blanchard said. “More and more people are taking an interest in what’s going on.

“Whenever a cause needs to be taken up, people make things happen.” He cited a few examples, such as the gazebo and the library, and improving signage for the village.

Although the association has made progress on listing and working toward objectives for the future, Blanchard said Fredericktown has not yet found its niche.

“That’s something that we continue to talk about,” he said. “To say we’ve come up with something yet would not be accurate.”

Blanchard, who is also manager of the First-Knox National Bank in Fredericktown, said the FCDF has also not set specific targets, such as to the number of new jobs the group would like to attract to the area, for example.

“We have not set numbers as far as what we are looking for. There are some things on the table we are waiting to see their impact,” he said.

In creating and implementing a vision, communication is key, he said.

“To carry out a vision you need to have communication with all areas — and getting everybody on board where people can express their opinion,” he said.

Of Schultz’s presentation at Tuesday’s business forum, Blanchard said, “If you looked at the examples that he had ... a lot of minds were churning about how they could compare to us,” he said.

One thing he took away from the presentation was that “no suggestion is a crazy suggestion when you look at what other people have done.”