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.
Dan has arranged a Grant Writing Workshop to be held in Presho at 5pm on May 13th. All communites are invited to attend, it will be held at the Presho Public Library on Main Street. Dr. Pat Johnson and Mindy Hubert from SDSU with be presenting. I encourage anyone who is interested in grant writing to participate.
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.
Blog training had some new participation. It’s good to see more people taking the time to participate and learn how to blog. Thank you to all our new bloggers!!
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.
March Question: Will you monitor and evaluate your community’s progress in reducing poverty?
The Thrift Store is going to have a discount program that allows residents to apply for a discount card that would give them a 50 % discount on merchandise. We can use these names to give us information on how many people in this community are living in poverty. We can hopefully use the skills we learned in Horizons II to help these individuals get out of povery.
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.
In what new or expanded ways are people contributing to your community?
The thrift store name contest got 53 entries, 40 from people that have never been involved in the Horizon II project.
2 board members of the thrift store are emerging leaders that are new to our projects.
I have received several calls about donating to the thrift store.
Area groups are wanting to volunteer time to get the store ready to open.
Launch ‘08 is a one-day event advancing entrepreneurship education in
SD on Thursday, February 28, on Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell. The 2008 conference features two tracks: Educator track is geared toward those who are interested in integrating innovative and creative thinking within their respective disciplines. This year’s conference features the following internationally-renowned speakers: Ed Sobey, PhD, global evangelist for creative learning and founding Director of the Northwest Invention Center, The National Inventors Hall of Fame and National Toy Hall of Fame; Kathleen R. Allen, PhD, a nationally recognized and respected leader, consultant, speaker and author of numerous books on entrepreneurship as well as the Director of the University of Southern California Marshall Center for Technology Commercialism; and Timothy M. Stearns, PhD., holder of the Coleman Foundation Chair in Entrepreneurial Studies and the executive director of the Lyles Center for Innovation and Entrepreurship at California State University-Fresno.
If you are interested in attending Launch ‘08, email Martha at martha.landes@sdstate.edu (registration deadline is February 15)
One of the January questions is “how has leadership in your community been enhanced/improved?” I believe more people are speaking up and making their opinions known, especially people who in the past may not have done so. I feel communication is essential to change/improvement so more discussion on issues is a good thing!