St. James, MN

Another community-building resource is coming to St. James, but pay attention to see how it works.

The Northwest Area Foundation funds Horizons, which is run by the University of Minnesota Extension service. Another program of Northwest Area Foundation is called “Creating a Value Added Community” (CVAC). Both Horizons and CVAC are designed to reduce poverty in rural areas.
Now CVAC has teamed up with the Madelia Model to bring the CVAC program and the Madelia Model bioenergy projects to the communities surrounding Madelia. The CVAC portion is being implemented by Renewing the Countryside. One goal is to incorporate existing community programs like Horizons and Bridging Brown County, so that we are all working together on a regional level.

The next meeting will be Tuesday, March 25, from 1-4 p.m. at the St. James Library, because they want to move the meetings around. They are looking for more people to get involved and learn how to Create a Value Added Community. To get involved, contact Linda Meschke at Rural Advantage.

Less than one year into the program, Horizons has sparked many projects and meetings in St. James.  A Horizons Leadership Team meeting on Monday, February 18, gave updates on several of the projects.
One of the central goals to come out of the Horizons community visioning meeting in October was to have all the St. James arrows pointed in the same direction.  That meant getting people and community groups working on common goals, rather than each person or group working on different groups.
For that purpose, the Unity/ Diversity/ Working Together Future Squad will have their organizational meeting on Thursday, Feb. 28, from 5:15 to 7:00, First Presbyterian Church.
The group will also invite members of the Unity/Unidad committee, which has not met for several months.  The meeting will be to brainstorm and come up with ideas for the Unity Future Squad.
Other Horizons projects updated were:
• The  community vision and vision statement threshold was met, with more than 600 people in St. James commenting on the Horizons vision.
• Bus shelter - a $2,000 donation from Tony Downs was announced to go toward the first project.
• More bloggers are wanted for the St. James community blog, stjames.communityblogs.us.
• Home repair classes are scheduled for May.
• Green Team Future Squad is planning to put up a display in the St. James Library, and work with schools on an Earth Day project.