Sustaining action and creating structural changes…….
In addressing several of the April blog questions, I would venture to say that the way Tyndall will maintain strong community leadership and create structural change is to continue what we have learned in the Horizons program….meet regularly, ASK people to help or volunteer, and to press on in the face of occasional adversity. It’s the pioneer’s way. That is how all these small towns were established-by persistance, patience, and looking forward to the possibilities. Horizons has inspired HOPE, while at the same time, some of us are trying to figure out how to help the less fortunate in even better ways. The economy is scaring the daylights out of business and families. Poverty, and its many faces, will probably always be there, but we can do some things to help.
What structural changes have we made in how decisions are made? Well, the Cavalier Corner is run by board decisions and the Bargain Shoppe has an officer board and both meet regularly to check in and make decisions about future activities. The web site committee meets regularly to also check in and discuss the website production. Mostly, articles about the activities appear either on the blog or in the local newspaper so that the public has the opportunity to learn about the projects. Articles about our monthly planning meetings have always been recorded in the blog and in the newspaper. Recently our public policy committee has partnered with SDSU to provide an informational public forum on low income issues.
How will our community leadership sustain partnerships? Out of necessity! When you live in a small place, you have got to help each other! The website currently is all volunteer and is being helped financially by the city and the Tyndall Development Corporation. The Cavalier Corner has created a great partnership with one of our local contractors, who has been a leader in the community in his own right,quietly volunteering where needed and always interested in the quality of life for our youth in the community. It is totally necessary to partner with other entities. The city has been supportive, and recently has been active in partnering with Horizons in setting another new goal of providing continued daycare for our new population explosion. More to come on that, as it is in the research stages!
If you have other observations, leave a comment here!
April 27th, 2008 at 11:52 pm
The leadership activities we’ve been working on are certainly going well. I’ve been please to see more ideas coming along. The Day Care project is especially interesting although I personally don’t have children of that age, 10 years ago I did some volunteering at a Day Care center which not only helped the staff and children, but also helped satisfy my “Grandma fever”!
Another project I’m concerned about as we deal with the rising cost of gas, the possibility of car pooling. My husband drives daily to work in Yankton, so I’m wondering how we can put together some sort of organization to help people get together for car pooling. With gas taking a larger part of the worker’s income, car pooling would fit in the Mission of preventing additional poverty! We don’t have to reinvent the wheel here. He “googled” car pooling systems and found Ride Matching Software, that we could get to work with. I know folks like the independence of driving their own cars, but with $4 gas coming, who can afford it!