Presho, SD

A Horizons meeting was held on June 17 at 7:30 at the Presho Public Library.  Dan O was present and there was a discussion about the plans for the celebration in the park on June 26.  A meal will be served at 5:30 with free swimming for those interested.  A program will follow; Kari will make some presentations to the Horizons committee.  The Horizons group is hoping for a large attendance at this event. 

Horizon members, Thrivent Financial for Lutherans members, Modern Woodmen members, and the Lyman County Museum members worked together to work at arranging articles at the new Thrift Store and More; cleaning up the town; cleaning the Merchants Park and cleaning at the Museum to get it ready for the opening on Memorial Day.  Thanks to all who so generously donated time to work on these projects to make Join Hands Day activities a success.  Flower plots were cleared at the park and the museum and flowers will be planted when the danger of frost has passed.

Question 8.  Through the Horizon session our community has learned that there are many potential leaders who can and will take charge and promote activities that they feel are important.  A number of individuals have stepped forward to help with the Thrift Store that is being started in Presho.  Different people have stepped forward to help promote and insure the success of the newly implemented Senior Meals program.  Horizons has helped to generate interest in welfare of the citizens of the community and has brought more people into the decision making process.   Communication among the citizens about the projects and donations of time and resources has increased.

In what new or expanded ways are people contributing to your community? I’ve been pleased with the phone calls and comments from people in the community on the projects we’ve started and the donations, offers of volunteer work and ideas are very welcome indeed. There’s seems to be excitement about the Thrift Store and others have commented about projects that are in the works such as the bike/walking path. Now we are asking people to join us in these ventures. We will be asking groups as well as individuals to help with clean-up, painting, shelving, and more. This is a project for the people, by the people.

In what new or expanded ways are people contributing to your community? One of the questions for the month of March. I’m glad to see new faces joining forces with the Horizons group. We need to continue to invite people to our planning sessions. Let it be known out there that Horizons will meet the 4th Monday of the month at the library. Our next upcoming meeting is Mon., Mar. 31 but will be at the High School so more people can be shown how to blog on this site. Please keep watch in the Lyman Co.Herald for more details and times.

We’ve added some new faces to the new Thrift Store board and are hoping to hear from the other committees that they’ve added some new ones, too. People probably won’t join if they aren’t invited. Let’s invite people that haven’t had the opportunity to work on community projects yet so that we can see change here in Presho. Who else can tell us of new or expanded ways people are contributing to our community?

What community resources will be needed to sustain the community plan to reduce poverty? One of our March questions that needs answering…COMMUNITY VOLUNTEERS are needed to help clean and paint the inside of the building we will be renting from Chad Johnson at the N. end of main so that we can start bringing in racks and shelving that is also needed at this time. I am excited to get this project off the ground finally. Teresa has gotten a business plan put together and the board had their first official meeting. So one of the things we need to look at is the resources to get this project moving ahead. This could definitely reduce poverty when we have the opportunity to offer clothing and household goods at a greatly reduced price to local residents and, hopefully with advertising, other communities as well. Our residents are our most valuable resource we have! Money, paint, cleaning supplies, racks, shelves, counter, storage containers, etc. are small things that are needed. Once the store is open people, again, are the resource we need to frequent the Thrift store for it to thrive. There is a lot of community interest in this project and so far the Change Presho canisters have done pretty well to start with. We would like to be able to put some of this money back into the community businesses as well by purchasing the supplies we need. But most importantly, as already stated, volunteers are the most needed resource right now. We will also need volunteers to run the store once we get it off the ground. There are great, fun ways to reward these volunteers, too. Call and find out how we plan to do that!! Contact Michelle Lintvedt or Teresa Shook.

Here are some pictures of  our well attended Celebration.

Santa was very popular!

(from South Dakota Community Blog)

Presho has some great things on their blog that other communities can learn from!

• Lots of background information, how they got this far, everything you ever wanted to know about the Horizons project in Presho.
• Sharing the Vision & Mission Statements, asking for community feedback.
• Photos and stories tell the story of community work.
• Specific questions to elicit responses from community members - for instance asking for input on location of a thrift store.
• Sharing ideas, “getting the ball rolling” and asking for input on the shop local campaign.
• Poll asking, “What’s the first Change Presho project you want to work on?” Letting people have a say in setting priorities for action.
• Adding the “Recent Comments” link on the sidebar so people can easily see what others have added to the conversation. Want to know how to do that on your community blogs? Ask the folks at Presho!
• Clever ideas and marketing, one of my favorite ideas I have seen so far is their “Change Presho” idea. So simple and yet potential for great things in the future!

Great job Presho!!! 

In a recent survey Presho increased its knowledge of leadership in the community.  The survey shows that 57.1% of Presho’s LP participants felt they had increased their leadership skills and that 58.6% of this increase was due to participating in the LP study.

According to the survey 71.4% of Presho participants intend to use their leadership skills to work on poverty reduction.  The same percentage of respondents reported that they intended to involve more people in community decision-making.

The Horizons project has helped Presho to address or change poverty in their community as shown by 71.4% of respondents indicating that more people are aware of poverty in the community.  The survey shows that Presho participants showed an increase in leadership skills and abilities across all categories.

Here’s my idea for a Proudly Purchased in Presho logo. I think the stylized P shows how money spent locally circulates locally.   I’m open to other ideas, improvements, suggestions and comments.  Maybe this will just get the ball rolling on a logo.

I have a couple of ideas for how to use it.  First get a bunch of very small stickers, like the Chiquita Banana sticker and put it on everything sold.  The second idea might be to provide shopping bags with the logo on it.