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.
The Thrift Store and More board would like to say thank you to all that have volunteered and donated items to the store. It is great to see so many people involved in this project.
The store will be opening May 29th and the open house/fundraiser will be on June 7th. We will be accepting donations on May 10th and then on any day we are open for business. We plan on being open Thursday and Friday, 10-6, and Saturday 10-4. We are still looking for volunteers to work during these hours, if you are interested please contact Michelle or Teresa.
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.
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.
At the February 25 meeting we decided to meet on Monday, March 31st. We will be doing a blog training at the school. The meeting will start at 6 in the Home Ec Room, everyone is asked to bring bars or cookies for the blog training. The training will start at 7.
We also decided that we need to have 1 person in charge of the monthly meeting, I have the sign up sheet. Please let me know if you can a month.
March-Dawn Keyes
April-Teresa Shook
May- Sandi Neal
June-Carol B
July-
August-Michelle
September Deb Smith
October-
November-
December-
On your month you are in charge of the food, agenda and reminders.
We also decided to meet the 4th Monday of the month, I know March is the 5th Monday, but we had to deal with Easter.
Please get as many people as you can to come to the blogging training. Thank you. Teresa
Presho has participated in the study circles, leadership plenty, and is now in Horizons II. Surveys were given to the study circle participants at the beginning to obtain their knowledge of poverty and again at the conclusion of those sessions. The information on the surveys shows that the Presho participants have increased in their knowledge of poverty. The surveys were scaled from 1 (little knowledge) to 4 (much knowledge) about poverty. The categories and the results are:
1. Knowing the kinds of poverty that affect the area: beginning 2.23 at the end 3.47
2. Reasons it’s difficult to get out of poverty: beginning 2.28 at the end 3.27
3. How poverty affects the community: beginning 2.33 at the end 3.33
4. Strategies to reduce poverty: beginning 2.00 at the end 3.27
5. Individual actions to reduce poverty: beginning 2.15 at the end 3.27
6. Community actions to reduce poverty: beginning 2.08 at the end 2.87
7. Policies to reduce poverty: beginning 1.92 at the end 2.67
8. Knowing possible causes of poverty: beginning 2.62 at the end 3.53
From these results Presho participants learned a great deal about poverty and how it affects the community from participating in the study circles.
The survey showed that 100% of Presho participants showed an increase in their knowledge of poverty compared to 88.3% in other communities. Survey shows that 75% have already taken action in their community to reduce poverty compared to 58.3% in other communities.
The surveys were given to the youth in the community and the survey results show that the youth gained a great deal of knowledge from the study circles, too. Survey results at the beginning ranged from 1.67 to 3.00; ending survey results ranged from 2.33 to 3.67. The survey showed that 100% of Presho youth showed an increase in their knowledge of poverty compared to 94% of youth in other participating communities. The survey shows that 66.7% of Presho’s youth have already taken some action to reduce poverty as compared to 50.9% of youth in all participating communities.
Knowledge of poverty is important; now it is necessary to take the action steps that are needed to make a difference. Check the survey results on the Presho site.
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I would really like to find out what residents think of a thrift store in Presho? Does anyone have an idea of a building where we could put it?