FERRIDAY &8212; Leaders and future leaders of Ferriday will gather Thursday afternoon for the first of a 10-week Community Leadership and Economic Development Program.

Sponsored by the LSU AgCenter, the program is designed to give members of local communities the tools to help identify and resolve the issues they face.

Ferriday Alderman Johnnie Brown, a member of the steering committee, told his fellow aldermen in their March meeting that nearly 50 people had signed up for the course, which will meet at 5:30 p.m. every Thursday at the Concordia Parish Community Center on Louisiana 15. Dinner will be provided.

He said leaders of the parish&8217;s business, legal and governmental communities will all be present.

The program is open to anyone in the community. There is no cost to participate, although a commitment to the entire 10-session program is urged.

Sanford Dooley, a professor with LSU AgCenter, said each class builds on the last and that the course would focus on team building, problem identification and developing plans to solve those problems.

&8220;We want to develop leadership teams,&8221; he said. &8220;Then we figure out what we have to work on and then form an action plan.&8221;

&8220;When we finish, we hope to have people motivated and knowledgeable about how to be leaders and tackle the problems they&8217;ve identified.&8221;

Dooley has run close to two-dozen of these programs in its 10-year existence.

To find out about the program&8217;s effectiveness, one doesn&8217;t need to look too far.

&8220;We were their pilot program,&8221; Buddy Spillers said.

Spillers was working with the nascent Macon Ridge Economic Development Corporation at the time of the first Community Leadership and Development Program, which was held in Concordia Parish.

Spillers, who now is president of the Ouachita Economic Development Corporation, said the lessons learned from that program helped Macon Ridge &8212; now called the Northeast Louisiana Economic Development Alliance &8212; get on its feet.

&8220;It helped us understand that we needed to make our effort inclusive of the whole parish,&8221; he said. &8220;They taught us that economic development cannot be successful without community development.&8221;

The cost of the program, which Dooley estimated between $2,000-$2,500, comes entirely from local sources.

&8220;We provide the teaching materials and our services and the local steering committee raises the rest,&8221; he said.

Brown said local banks, Sheriff Randy Maxwell and the Town of Ferriday have all chipped in to cover part of the expense of the program.

Anyone interested in joining or helping fund the program can contact Brown at (601) 442-0243.