The St. James community photo taken at 6 a.m. on Wednesday, July 30, for the St. James Horizons story that will appear in Source magazine.  Photo is from St. James Plaindealer web site.  Thanks to Extension for setting it up, and thanks to Sue Harris (back row, right side) to get everyone to show up so early.

• MPR’s The Future of Small Towns Idea Generator - http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/projects/2005/04/smalltowns/
(People, Economic Opportunity, Human Services, Telecommunications, Transportation, Social/Cultural Opportunities, Education, Government, Other. Challenge: find Dave Stordalen’s and Mark Anderson’s posts)
• Project For Public Spaces - Building Community, Creating Places, Using Common Sense - http://www.pps.org/
(Parks, Transportation, Civic Centers, Public Markets, Downtowns, Mixed-Use Development, Campuses, Squares, Waterfronts)
• Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation - http://www.smifoundation.org/
(Grants, Community, Business, Voices, Early Childhood, Bio-Industry, Asset-Based Community Development)

• The Harwood Institute for Public Innovation - http://www.theharwoodinstitute.org/

Other Places To Get Ideas:
• BetterTogether - http://www.bettertogether.org/
• Center For Rural Policy and Development - http://www.mnsu.edu/ruralmn/
• Local Initiatives Support Corporation - http://www.lisc.org/
• Heartland Center for Leadership Development - http://www.heartlandcenter.info/
• New Rules Project - Designing Rules As If Community Matters - http://www.newrules.org/
• Institute For Local Self-Reliance - http://www.ilsr.org/
• Local Government Commission - a nonprofit organization working to build livable communities - http://www.lgc.org/
(Community Design, Economic Development, Energy, Environment, People & Community, Transportation, Waste Prevention)
• Boomtown USA - http://boomtownusa.blogspot.com/
• National Trust Main Street Center - http://www.mainstreet.org/
• The City Repair Project - http://www.cityrepair.org
• Seven Revolutions - http://www.7revs.org
• Community Development Foundation - http://www.cdf.org.uk/
• World Changing - Change Your Thinking - http://www.worldchanging.com/
• The Minnesota Design Team - http://www.minnesotadesignteam.org/
• The Dialogue Project - Building Community Through Dialogue - http://www.thedialogueproject.org/
• COMM-ORG - The Online Conference on Community Organizing and Development - http://comm-org.wisc.edu/
• Freakonomics - The Hidden Side of Everything - http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/
• Heartland Center for Leadership Development - http://www.heartlandcenter.info/
• Rural Policy Research Institute - http://www.rupri.org/
• Governing Magazine - http://www.governing.com/
• Wiser Earth - http://wiserearth.org/

• Northwest Area Foundation - http://www.nwaf.org/

Add Your Own:

After 18 months of planning, organizing, great conversations, and hard work, your work plan is complete! Click the link below to find details of the Horizons Team organizational plans, focus areas, and projects.

St. James Work Plan

Two great things happened near the end of the meeting that will give Horizons momentum going into the summer.  First was the announcement of a Community Coffee that will be held every Friday at the Community Building (behind the Princess Theater) at 9 a.m.  It will be the first weekly, open, public, community-building conversations ever to be held in St. James.  That’s a lot of adjectives, but there’s a lot of possibilities in the coffee.

The second is the Horizons quilt.  Donna Koch brought cloth strips and asked everyone to write a positive message on them, so they can be sewn into a quilt.  With the quilt and the new Horizons St. James banner, we will be able to assemble an impressive display.

Watonwan County Resource Directory

Notes from 5-8-08 Meeting

The other grant was $500 to the Green Team Future Squad to get their names on the reusable shopping bags that are going to be sold at grocery stores and around town. Besides being environmentally friendly, the project is a social contribution because the proceeds from selling the bags will go to a scholarship fund for low-income students.

This money comes out of the first $1,500 payment from the Northwest Area Foundation (the parent of Horizons) to St. James. Another $8,500 will be coming upon the completion of the Horizons program.

St. James still needs to do some work to check off all of the items, but some of the Horizons projects are doing this work.

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.