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.
Paint South Dakota is a community service program provided by the South Dakota Housing Development Authority. Each year community groups are encouraged to apply for the grant project. SDHDA provides primer and paint and a local community group provides the volunteer labor to paint the house. People can self nominate or can be chosen by a local group to participate. The requirements are:
1. The Nominee must own and currently live in the home to be painted. It cannot be a business, rental house, contain rental units or property used for other purposes besides a primary residence.
2. The Nominee must need their home repainted and would otherwise not be able to paint the house on their own due to financial or physical difficulty.
A group from Grace Lutheran Church will be painting a house in Sisseton this year. For more information or to get involved, contact Jeff Gregg.
The idea for the swap is to keep good, usable items out of the land fill and also to provide people in our community with free items that they can make use of. Lots of people were able to get rid of their C.R.U.D! (That’s Community Recycling of Usable Discards!)
This first swap was real success with 200+ items swapped and just a few things left over! There was everything from A to Z that people brought to swap including beds and bed frames, computers and scanners, bicycles, chairs, toilets, carpets, Christmas decorations, child booster and car seats and many other things! It’s amazing what people brought and what other people needed. It was a great event and more may be planned in the future.
Thanks to all who participated in the Swap, and thanks to Lindy Staub and the Sisseton Swimming Pool for all their help in arranging the event and providing the space for the swap.
Several community residents came together over a two-day period to help clean up Sisseton as part of the Spring Sweep. Several dumpsters, truck beds and trailers were filled with trash, trees and brush from the Cedar Park area and around the community.
Over 70 people were involved with the clean up including individuals and members of several community groups, such a 4-H Clubs, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and Church groups.Thanks to all who helped with this community clean up!
Everyone who participated in the clean up received a $4 gift certificate from Horizons to a local restaurant. Garbage bags for the clean up were provided by Dakota Western Corporation at Agency Village. A big thanks to them for this donation!
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!
Plans are being made for a 6 week community clean up effort in Sisseton. Each week will focus in on a different community action to help clean up the community and get people thinking about being involved and building community pride. The tentative projects include:
Week 1: Kick-Off
1. Brooms for Businesses to promote a clean sweep.
2. Brooms, Rakes and Recycle Bins available at A&C Variety at a discounted price to promote clean up and shopping downtown.
3. Coordinate with parks board, older youth and adults to clear walking trail area.
4. Begin recycling efforts
5. Possibly hold kick-off event
Week 2: Community Clean Up
1. Set up collection sites for electronic recycling
2. Set up area for Sisseton Swap - were people bring items (not clothing) that they no longer need/want. Later in the campaign it will be open for people to take what they need/want.
3. Coordinate with various youth groups/organizations and volunteers to pick up trash on streets, parks & hwy 10. We will need garbage bags and gloves. Volunteers would be given a beverage and certificate to use at local business for a treat.
Week 3: Fresh Air - promote positive attitudes
1. Radio ad campaign re: community pride, keep it clean, etc.
2. Promote walking, use of city parks, outdoor activities
3. Promote Free Family Fun Events - multi-cultural
Week 4: Community Swap
1. Open swap area for people to bring/take
2. Radio ads to promote recycling, reuse, reduce, repurpose
3. Add recycling bins and garbage cans around town
Week 5: Community Graffiti Combat Plan
1. Research possibility of treating brick buildings in downtown and area churches with chemical pre-wash to prevent graffiti
2. Purchase and Promote paint/supplies available at City Hall for local businesses to use when tagged.
3. Work with Police Department to create youth task force on gang and graffiti awareness
Week 6: City Wide Rummage Sales
1. Support project that is coordinated by Chamber
2. Promote programs/organizations that will take good used items that do not sell (instead of taking to the dump)
3. Host Celebration Event to evaluate (and celebrate) what we have accomplished and plan for future
To get involved contact Jennie or Sandi at 698-7642.
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
The Sisseton area hosted a poverty workshop for employers and the Sisseton School District staff during the day. Later in the evening Kjerstin Smith also gave an hour and a half seminar about poverty to community members. There were about 23 community members there along with many SDSU extension members. Kjerstin talked about the different types of register for language, the hidden words behind each individual/town/culture, but the most important thing that she told us to not judge is the word “economic” and “culture”. They are two totally different topics but they are associated with poverty in some way, but not together. Poverty isn’t just about money, it’s about a lack of resources. Some families who live in poverty don’t want to leave poverty because they like their lives, besides the fact that they don’t have enough money, they are content with their lives. Some people in poverty are afraid to go into the middle class life. Just a fact that I learned last night was that an adult who is average, has a vocabulary of 900 words, while a three year old, wealthy lifestyle, has a vocabulary of about 1200 words.
Kjerstin also had the community members talk in groups at their tables about “Why did you come?”, ”What frustrates you or what gifts did you get out from working with a person who is in poverty?”
Another group question was, “What kind of situation, that you were in, made you feel out of place?”
She stated that each community has their own hidden rules. Sisseton doesn’t have a sign up as soon as you pull into town saying, “You can’t say this…, you have to do this…, or you have to wear this…”
People who are in poverty can feel hesitant about going to school because most schools are based on middle class lifestyles. That goes back to the question about the situation that made you feel out of place.
Since the seminar was only an hour and a half long for the community members, we as a community can get more information or resources about poverty and distribute it or present it to the community in the near future.
Every community has the opportunity to make a change, and this is just one step that Sisseton is doing to make that change.
The Sisseton Horizon’s group has brought in a certified trainee, Kjerstin M. Smith, who will lead a workshop by informing our community about poverty.
This is an editorial from our local newspaper about the workshop.
People in poverty face challenges virtually unknown to those in the middle and upper classes–challenges from both obvious and hidden sources. The reality of being poor brings out a survival mentality, and turns attention away from opportunities taken for granted by everyone else.
How does poverty impact learning, work habits or decision making? If you work with people in poverty, a bit of understanding of how different their world is from yours will be invaluable.
For the past several months, particpants in the Hoizons Project in Sisseton have discussed how poverty effects various aspects of our community. Some of the Horizons discussions focused on the book “A Framework for Understanding Poverty” by Ruby K. Payne, Ph.D. With over one million copies in print, the bestselling book has guided hundreds of thousands of educators and other professionals through the pitfalls and barriers faced by all classes, especially the poor.
The local Horizons committee has purchased a number of these books. If individuals are interested in reading the book prior to the workshop, they can check them out by contacting Gary Evjen at Sisseton High School.
Taking the information one step further, the Sisseton Horizons Committee is also sponsoring two workshops based on A Framework for Understanding Poverty. Both events will be held on Thursday, Jan. 3, 2008, at the Sisseton High School Practice Facility.
Educators and school staff will be involved in a day-long workshop, beginning at 8:30 a.m. Later in the day, parents and other community members are encouraged to attend an evening session beginning at 6:30 p.m.
(Editor’s Note: The evening session will be completed by 8:00 p.m., so participants may also attend the public hearing on the proposed Fine Arts Facility.)
The workshop will be led by Kjerstin M. Smith, a certified trainer. Smith has been a professional educator since 1993. During her career, she has taught students from elementary through college levels, with the majority of her time spent at the middle school. Her entire teaching career has been spent in lower socioeconomic schools, causing her to become a strong advocate for children in poverty.
In addition to being a certified trainer for A Framework for Understanding Poverty, Kjerstin has provided in-service training in classroom management, Reading in the Content Area, Writing Across the Disciplines, and English Language Learners. She helped write the Sioux Falls School District’s 6th grade Advisory Curriculum and co-wrote the district’s Humanities Curriculum.
Sisseton received a grant through the Horizons Project to sponsor the workshop locally. The event is free and open to everyone in Sisseton and the surrounding area.
