Presho, SD

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.

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.

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.

The Change Presho canisters have been put in local businesses. In 2 weeks we collected $79.18. Hopefully we will continue to bring in money to help with startup costs for the thrift store.

The name of the Thrift Store has been decided, Thift Store and More. The winning entry was by a local youth, Brody Ness, he has won the $25 in Chamber Bucks. He entered his name at the Farm and Home show in February.
A board has been selected and all the paper work to open a business is starting. The Thriftstore accepted donations from the church rummage sale March 15 and I am already receiving calls on donations of furniture to sell and racks to use.
There was 53 entries to the name contest so the community is getting involved in this project.
Thank you to everyone that is participating in getting the thrift store going.

Blogg Training is scheduled for March 31st at the school. We will have a Horizons meeting at 6 and the training will start at 7. We will be offering incentives to High school and Jr High students so please encourage as many people as possible to come. Thank you.

The contest was started at the Farm and Home Show and will continue until March 14th. I have received several replies and am excited for the Thrift Store Board to make a decision. If anyone would like to suggest a name please contact me at 895-2368. We are giving $25 in Chamber Bucks to the winner!!

What changes have been made in the way your community recruits and trains new leaders?
I think we used to try to recruit in a larger non personal way, now we are trying to look at our community and ask ourselves who could we invite to help us.

Are different kinds of people (representing more sectors or parts of the community) now participating in community leadership?

A younger segemnt of our population is getting involved in the Horizon projects. Local clubs are seeing a greater number of students participating. Horizons is targeting Jr High and High School students to start blogging.