What is the Natchez Retiree Partnership? We are probably a well-kept secret, unless you are a retiree. We are the Natchez-Adams County retiree attraction and recruitment program, operating through Natchez Inc. and certified by Hometown Mississippi Living, a state program under the Mississippi Development Authority.

Our role is to promote the Natchez area as a great place to live for relocating retirees. We are a group of volunteers, primarily retirees, with a director working together marketing Natchez to retirees who are considering relocating.

How do we market Natchez? The state includes Natchez in all their national retiree targeted ads, on their website, in Mississippi Living Magazine and retirement brochures. Natchez advertises in national magazines directed to relocating retirees. We distribute our brochures around town where visitors will see them, at the state welcome centers and the Natchez Visitor Reception Center.

We have a website, www.natchezretirement.net. This advertising and promotion results in requests for information about Natchez. We follow up on the leads and arrange for visit and tour if requested. This is normally a three- to four-year process before a retiree relocates.

Why do we want retirees to move to Natchez? Primarily because of the economic impact. Each relocating retiree household has the equivalent economic impact of adding 3.7 factor jobs. We identified 247 retiree households since the program began in 1996, having the impact of approximately 800 jobs. Retirees will have purchasing power in that they buy homes, cars, groceries, eat at restaurants and purchase goods at local stores, and pay taxes to name a small amount of the economic impact. They also contribute to the community through volunteerism. Studies show that 85 percent of the volunteer hours are from people over the age of 50.

The Natchez Retiree Partnership and the other certified cities in Mississippi have been asked by the state retiree program to attempt to identify retirees that have relocated to their cities and possibly are not on the rolls because they didn’t contact the retiree program before relocating.

If you have retired and moved to Natchez since 2005 and are not known by the Natchez Retiree Partnership, I would ask that you contact us at the following e-mail: retireenatchez@bellsouth.net or 601-304-0763.

We are only interested in your name and from where you moved. You don’t have to give us your address unless you want to be placed on our mailing list.

The Natchez Retiree Partnership has free monthly programs that are of interest to retirees.

We thank you for your help in us locating retirees that have moved here.

 

J. Clark Feiser is the director of the Natchez Retiree Partnership.