Tyndall, SD

A committee of mostly new volunteers, but spearheaded by Horizons leader and school teacher Chad Jodozi, is working on a new daycare facility for the town. We have had a couple of daycares discontinue, so this committee is making a gigantic effort to provide additional daycare to the already great daycare providers we have left. We all know that if we want our towns to stabilize and maybe grow, we have to have daycare for the families with both parents working full-time out of the home. This is essential. There are some worried individuals that think that this new facility will take business away from the other daycares but we have to provide adequate spaces. The city has been working with the group and is offering their full support. This facility will provide one more full-time job and some part-time jobs to the community.

Tyndall’s Cavalier Corner is offering a GED program this fall!  They are teaming up with Joblink out of Yankton and to date there are seven individuals that have signed up for the program.  We know how important a high school education is and this program will hopefully help these people get a leg up so they can move forward with their education and work possibilities.  We all learned through Horizons the importance of education in the fight to reduce poverty and it is clear as crystal how true that is. Anyone needing info on setting up GED in your area, go to your school district and get started there.

Farm families who have experienced a major injury or illness may apply for planting assistance of up to 1,000 acres free of charge. If you know of any family who is in this situation, please forward this information. For more information you may contact Farm Rescue or call 701-252-2017. Email address is www.farmrescue.org

The Rural Office of Community Services in Lake Andes is sponsoring a Garden Project for low income individuals, families or community groups. The project will provide gardeners with seeds, plant sets and garden assistance for their own home garden usage and food consumption. This would be a wonderful way to supplement the food budget by growing their own food. For more information and guide lines please contact the ROCS office in Lake Andes. The telephone number is 487-7634.

After almost 7 months of waiting, Cavalier Corner has obtained its tax exempt status!  The formal letter from the IRS came on Thursday to inform the board that our application had been approved under section 501(c)(3).  A special thank you goes to Lisa Rothschadl for her hard work in getting all of the paper work filled out and filed.

Wow, what alot of good opportunity to learn from other towns and cities.  Justin Wagner and I delivered a power point presentation explaining the Tyndall Horizon projects at the MidState Conference at South Sioux City, NE .  Although we  presented at the conference , we came away with many useful ideas and encouragement. There were many good presenters and wide varity of ideas or new approaches to the same problems.

There has been many new and reinforcements partnerships in Tyndall over the past year. There are partnerships between youth, funders, school, volunteers, businesses, the city and USDA Rural Development.

I recently attended the workshop in Tripp covering entrepreneurship and economic development, facilitated by Horizon’s Carla Trautman and Keri Freuchte. The speakers were from the SDSU economics department-Dr. Larry Swain ( entrepreneur) and Dr. Jerry Warmann ( Economics Department). Dr. Swain talked about co-ops, co-ordinating with other communities on an idea for enterprise, and combining businesses ( partnerships ! ) We have heard a lot about partnerships in our months of Horizons meetings. It is important! And we found out that we already partner alot already when we were not even aware of it! ( For example, some businesses partner on advertising ) Are we partnering with low incomes in mind? Yes-Tyndall is leading the way as our new youth center and the bargain shoppe are partners with success. What other ways can you think of that we are partnering with poverty issues in mind. Comment here at this posting!

When we started to really deal with what is causing the poverty in our area we realized, probably against our willingness, that partnerships must be established.  With several of the projects which have been started, the partnership was slow in coming.  People, in general, are afraid to move away from their comfort zones and get involved in a much larger scope.  The past month it has been very exciting and interesting to see the cooperation with other groups and organizations from the surrounding committees.  Although several projects are in the conception stage, there is a light on at the end of the tunnel to develope some more jobs to keep people in all of our communities.

More community support for the Cavalier Corner!  Jim Koenig of Koenig Insurance has put a challenge out to the local business community to support the Youth Center.  Jim will match dollar for dollar each money that the local businesses donate to the Youth Center up to $10,000!  It will be $2,000  a year for 5 years and we will be able to use the donations which were given to start the project.  Jim Koenig is shown in the picture presenting Janet Wagner with the first $2,000 donation.