Young people emphasized as key to rural revitalization 

Reprinted from The Watertown Public Opinion
By Mary Gales Askren
November 24, 2006

SUMMIT - Community leaders from four counties were introduced to a new concept in rural economic development at a meeting in Summit on Tuesday afternoon: schools and young people are an integral part of community revitalization.

“This is our one big idea,” Lindsey Karlson said to those in attendance. “Youth might be the strongest catalysts for change in your community.”

At a meeting organized by Whetstone Valley Business Opportunities, Inc., Karlson along with Dr. Jim Beddow, executive director of the Rural Learning Center in Howard, and Randy Parry, executive director of Miner County Community Revitalization, shared their vision for community development based on their experiences in Miner County. More than 50 people from Grant, Day, Marshall and Roberts counties, including educators and students, were in attendance.

Whetstone Valley Business Opportunities, Inc., is a nonprofit organization created to assist local entrepreneurs, according to Faye Frerichs, community facilitator. She said the meeting was organized to educate area communities about the importance of working together.

Parry began the presentation by using graphs to show that before the Howard School District received funding through the Program for Rural School and Community Renewal in 1995, the population in Miner County had been in an 80 year decline and that the number of jobs created in the county had not increased as it had in the state during that same period.

Beginning with student-led discussions at the school and small group meetings in homes, the community began to identify its strengths and weaknesses. Parry said that over a period of 18 months, 341 meetings were held in the community to develop a community vision and to identify the underlying causes of community problems.

“The issue is the underlying causes to the problems. You have to come up with solutions to the underlying causes,” he said.

Among these was fragmented leadership, according to Parry. The local school board was independent of the city council, which was independent of the county commission, and community organizations, faith-based organizations, healthcare facilities and financial institutions weren't involved in decision-making.

In order to tackle the big problems of economic development, housing and capacity building, a community leadership council with representatives from all sectors was created, Parry said. As a result, over a five-year period, participation in implementing the community's strategic plan increased 170%.

Beddow emphasized the importance of commitment to community revitalization.

“It takes a concentrated, sustained effort. You have to stay with it and stay with it and start small,” he said.

According to Beddow, the Rural Learning Center was created to assist rural communities for the long haul, unlike programs that go into a community, get people fired up and leave. Organized around three core principles - concrete collaboration, shared learning and sustainable strategies, the emphasis is on teaching communities how to work together and to learn from each other.

“There is a basic inclination to work together, but people don't know how to do it because they're used to competition,” Beddow said.

Before collaboration can happen, he said, local people have to answer the question, “What's in it for us?” Once they see the benefits, they can envision a broader, more global community and people can start working together.

Because school districts have teachers, facilities, technology, curriculum and students, they need to be involved, according to Beddow.

“We have a very strong bias that the school district has to be a major player,” he said. “We don't have the opinion that school districts can save rural communities, but it's a piece of the puzzle.”

Karlson talked about the talent, ideas and manpower that students can bring to community development. She said that getting young people involved in their community also increases the likelihood that they will return to the community in adulthood.

Parry showed that two student projects had a significant impact on Miner County. The first was a cash flow study. After the results were presented in a power-point presentation, and people understood the impact of their spending habits, gross sales in Miner County increased $15.6 million or 41.1 percent in one year.

Another study involved the economic impact of transfer payments - social security and other benefits received by senior citizens. Students also looked at other contributions that senior citizens make to the community by volunteering and contributing other resources. By doing this, they were able to quantify the benefits of keeping senior citizens in the community.

“If five seniors leave the community, it's like a small business leaving your community,” Parry said.

Frerichs said that people left the meeting energized by possibilities, and that she has already received phone calls from individuals with ideas. Students will be part of any project that gets started, she said.