One of the goals in the Strategic Plan was to provide opportunities for people to promote tourism in the Sisseton area. On of the ways that we can build tourism is to have friendly, knowledgeable people working in our local businesses. A training was recently offered for high school students to learn more about serving the public.
We all want Sisseton to be an attractive, welcoming place. One of the Spring Sweep goals is to work on combating crime and graffiti. Several representatives of the city, city police department, probation officers, and concerned citizens have been meeting to come up with plans to help home and business owners deal with the problem of graffiti in our community.
Fresh Air Week is coming up! Horizons is working with the local radio station, KBWS to provide a week worth of radio ads to promote community pride, good attitudes and to continue the clean up efforts around town. The radio spots will also highlight some of the great assets that Sisseton has including parks, cultural attractions, businesses and the great people who call this place home.
Sisseton was part of the Design:SD project. Here’s some background from their website:
Design South Dakota is a newway to help rural communities create a better future by design. In April, 2008, a team of design and community development professionals will spend two intense days (called a design “charrette”) working with the people in the Sisseton, SD region to gather and illustrate local ideas. The event will help Sisseton to build a shared vision for the future, and to demonstrate ways to turn those ideas into reality in their regional community.
The completed concept boards will be delivered to the community soon and will probably be displayed somewhere in the community. More information to come…
Horizons has partnered with the A & C Variety store to provide community residents with brooms and rakes at a discounted price. The project is meant to encourage people to take pride in their community and to promote shopping locally. Community members were encouraged to stop by A & C and pick up a broom or rake for just $2. We’ve already seen some community members out and about using their red handled brooms! Each person also received information about the Horizons projects and the action ideas being planned for the future to make Sisseton a great place for all its residents.
A BIG THANKS!to the folks at A & C for partnering with us to make this event a success!
Over 120 brooms will be delivered to Sisseton businesses as a way to say thanks for keeping Sisseton a clean, great place to live. The campaign is to encourage community businesses to take pride in their community and to lend a helping hand to make the community a clean, appealing place for the residents. We’ve heard a lot of good feedback from business owners, who were excited to accept the brooms and were grateful to be included as a valuable member of the community. The broms were provided as part fo the Horizons project and were the kick off to the 6 week Spring Sweep. The brooms are still being delivered, so if you haven’t gotten yours yet, don’t worry the Horizons group is still working.
As part of the follow up to the LeadershipPlenty portion of the Horizons project, the Horizons group created a survey to give to people at the 2007 Horse and Buggy Days. The group also had some Horizons water bottles created by Glacial Lakes Bottling to use as a marketing tool and to thank people for filling out the survey. To read the results of the surveys collected, click the link below:
2007-sisseton-community-needs-assessment.pdf
The information gathered will be used to create an action plan for Sisseton in the next phase of the Horizons project.
A five member Resource Team came to Sisseton in April 2007 as part of the South Dakota Rural Development Council’s Community Assessment program. The team spent 3 days in Sisseton holding listening sessions with several community groups, all together about 150 people participated in the listening sessions. Sisseton was then given a report of the feedback from the listening sessions along with suggestions for action and several recources to help with technical assistance, funding and ideas of how othe communities have tackled the same issues.
Sisseton is working on the Community Assessment in tandem with the ongoing Horizons projects including Study Circles which occured in Winter 2007 and LeadershipPlenty in Summer 2007. To read a copy of the Community Assessment click the link below:
We asked the Horizons participants to give us their feedback about how their community is changing in the areas of Poverty Reduction, Increasing Leadership and Community Change. The next few posts are the responses to questions about each of those topics…
How will your community make decisions about seeking further resources to support its plans?
We asked the Horizons participants to give us their feedback about how their community is changing in the areas of Poverty Reduction, Increasing Leadership and Community Change. The next few posts are the responses to questions about each of those topics…
How can your community sustain the changes it has already made in its leadership?
We asked the Horizons participants to give us their feedback about how their community is changing in the areas of Poverty Reduction, Increasing Leadership and Community Change. The next few posts are the responses to questions about each of those topics…
In what new or expanded ways are people contributing to your community?
I have seen many new people get involved over the last few months attending community improvement meetings that I haven’t seen in the past. It was always the same people attending all of the meetings so it is nice to see new faces with an outgoing attitude and new ideas offering some help and input.
What structures have been created or changed that will help your community?
The addition of the Pamida store on E. Hwy 10 and the Dollar Store have been a nice additions to Sisseton. Hopefully with more retail stores, our community members will think twice before leaving town to shop and can do more of their shopping locally. The Middle School is officially closed and the new Middle School addition at the High School has been a good move I feel. The school has been very aggressive and continues to plan for the future with more additions. The remodel of the old church building on W. Hwy 10 into a restaurant has eliminated an eye sore for our Hwy 10 travelers and we look forward to them opening for business. The owners of the trailer part on E. Hwy 10 are emptying these lots by June 2008 which will be a great thing. This has turned into another eye sore for highway travelers and will be a great improvement once it is complete.
Written by Katy
We asked the Horizons participants to give us their feedback about how their community is changing in the areas of Poverty Reduction, Increasing Leadership and Community Change. The next few posts are the responses to questions about each of those topics…
What changes are you seeing in the way community leadership is exercised or carried out?
How is it different?
How has your community changed after LeadershipPlenty training?
In what ways have leadership skills been improved/enhanced?
What is different?
What changes are you seeing in the way leadership is carried out?
How decisions get made in your community?
What difference does the involvement of low income people make in community leadership?
We asked the Horizons participants to give us their feedback about how their community is changing in the areas of Poverty Reduction, Increasing Leadership and Community Change. The next few posts are the responses to questions about each of those topics…
How has your community leadership expanded?
In one instance: there is a new group taking over an activity that the committee from last year’s event resigned after several years on the activity. A new group of parents have stepped up to make sure the event will still succeed as it has in the past several years.
What changes have been made in who is now involved in leadership positions? For instance:
ü Are more people participating in leadership? The leaders seem to be the same people as there are always individuals that seem to want to help with several activities, but refuse to be “in charge.” There is more of co-leadership positions rather than one person in charge. It seems to spread out the responsibilities.
ü Are different kinds of people (representing more sectors or parts of the community) now participating in community leadership? I don’t really see more sectors at this point and time. There always has to be an issue of dispute that makes people get involved. They seem to think that is the time to get in and change things.
ü Does the community leadership reflect the community’s demographic profile? I don’t really see that it is represented on the percentage of the community’s demographics.
ü Are more low income people participating in community leadership? To some extent. It seems to be people of all income levels that are community minded.
What changes have been made in the way your community recruits and trains new leaders? The people always seem to think others will step up and be in charge as leaders and sometimes things will roll right along and then people lose interest and meetings just don’t seem to be a priority. Although they still want the end product to show results, but they are just “too busy” to get involved.
Sustains existing leaders? As I said before, it seems to be the same people that are the leaders and maybe part of the problem is that those people are so used to taking charge, that they just do it and don’t ask for help. It is probably just a matter of retraining those people too.
Written by Debbie Pageler
We asked the Horizons participants to give us their feedback about how their community is changing in the areas of Poverty Reduction, Increasing Leadership and Community Change. The next few posts are the responses to questions about each of those topics…
In what ways has this community’s knowledge about poverty changed? What evidence do you have of this?
Several people have read the Framework for Understanding Poverty by Dr. Payne. There are also many others reading the book by Dr. Payne titled Bridges out of Poverty. I know this because I have checked all the books out through my office.
Are more community members talking about poverty?
I believe there are more people talking and understanding poverty in a different light. There is a lot more work to do to get enough of the “right” people talking and coming up with solutions that will make a long term difference for people.
What kind of difference does it make if people in your community better understand the causes of poverty?
If people really understood we would actually come up with solutions. We need to get the people involved in solving the problem that are living in poverty what do they need? There are more resources than just dollars that people in poverty are lacking. It is a process that is going to take serious decision making by the powers to be to get people on the road out of poverty.
Written by Gary
Local Businesses are giving first graders their very own book.
The Sisseton Horizon’s project will be finishing up with the Strategic Planning so we can make our plans come into action! Over a year has gone by, and by this we have found leaders throughout our community and now we can use them to help carry out the action plan (We have conducted surveys that gave us names of people who wanted to help out in some-way-shape-or-form, and also if they were involved in previous activities).
Jennie Lynn and Karyn Moen went on an adventerous trip to Webster, S.D. First we left Sisseton at approximately 5:45, and rode along the long dusty old trail to Webster, S.D. We arrived at 6:30 on the dot, but the meeting was to start at 6:30. Needless to say, my trusty right handed lady didn’t bother to tell me that the Middle school was on the east side, instead of me thinking it was on the west side. We approached a red stop light. Patiencly waiting, I decide that there isn’t a cop coming just to stop and go, but that was only a thought. When we get down to the end of the block, after the 45 seconds of waiting, the road was blocked. So we went around the block, found many vehicles, but we didn’t find Cheryl Jacobs vehicle, so we knew that we weren’t in the right spot, and so we cruised around the block and found her car. During the trip Jennie Lynn called Cheryl and left her a nice sweet voicemail saying that we were running late. Cheryl told us that she would have her phone on her, well…she left it in her car, but we made it without being late, they just waited for us!
Tonight I traveled to Webster, SD with Karyn Moen in her wonderful truck — going on curves at 50 miles/hour and on two-wheels — o.k. not really. She’s a great driver. Tonight we are taking “Blog Training” from the wonderful Cheryl Jacobs, originally from Sisseton. This will be the coolest asset yet — for our community members to let their voices be heard and keep up with what is going on with the Horizon’s project.
My dad said adventures are lived out in the mind, then spoken. The Horizon’s project is Sisseton’s adventure in its persute to be a better place to live.