Moose Lake, MN

In attendance: Kris Geer, Jan Ashmore, Matt Ashmore, Cyndy Cohen, Gerene Johnson, Tarey Johnson, Cara Keinenan

Chairman, Matt Ashmore opened the meeting with a welcome to all members.
Minutes of the last meeting were amended and approved.
Action Team reports:
Tarey Johnson had no report from the Connecting Community Resources Team
Jan Ashmore reported for the People Helping People Committee. She included a report on the success of the Operation Community Connect event which was held in Cloquet in Oct.
Cara Keinanen reported that she would provide suicide prevention training. Community Education may host this event, but it was suggested that Horizons assist with this event. This will be discussed at our next meeting.
Kris Geer reported that Moose Lake coop donated all of their leftover seeds to the Community Gardening Committee. This committee held its last meeting of the year recently and made decisions regarding any changes that would be made for next year.
Matt Ashmore reported that a meeting was held for Teen Voices at the park, but nobody attended. They are actively recruiting members and have three teens who are now interested in participating.
Horizons Binder Update: Members reviewed materials to be included and Gerene will try to collate these binders by next month. Jan will check with Donna Lekander regarding extra paper and binders to use for this project.
Horizons Banner Update: Gerene displayed the banner. Cara will display this at the community craft fair on the 14th and we will discuss how to permanently display it at our next meeting. Gerene will provide Cara with business cards to print and hand out at the fair as well.
Horizons Fund Application Review Process: Jan will draft a new form with 5 bullets to weigh the components of each application and present it to the team at the next meeting.
Fiscal Agent Update: Cyndy and Tarey met with the fiscal agent and will meet with her again soon to draft a contract. Cyndy will provide the agent with sample agreements. Cyndy reported that the first $1500.00 should be available in late November.
MN Non-Profit Conference.: This will be held on Nov 5th and 6th with Cyndy, Jan and Kris at our local representatives. This will give them all a chance to connect with potential funders.
Resource Luncheon Meeting: This event will be held on Nov 18th from 11:00 to 1:00 at Mercy Hospital in the education room. All team members are encouraged to attend. Blue Bear restaurant will be catering. Cyndy encouraged all members of this team to supply her with names and addresses of community members who should be invited to this event.
Team members worked on the Resource Assistance Prioritization Process. Results were given to Cyndy.
A Grant-Writing Workshop will be provided to any interested community members on Nov 21st from 8:30 to 4 in Hinckley.
The next meeting will be held on Nov 24th at 6:00 at Gampers.
The meeting was adjourned at 8:30.

             There was a flurry of activity at the Armory in Cloquet on Wednesday, October 21^st, as the second annual Operation Community Connect – Helping Those Living on Less was underway .   According to an assessment done in Minnesota through the Wilder Foundation, approximately 9,000 men, women, and children are victims of homelessness each and every night (the Minnesota Coalition for the Homeless website; September 18, 2009).  Throughout the past couple of years, the communities in Carlton County have become aware of this growing epidemic and desire to do their part to assist the homeless and those at risk of homelessness, not only in Carlton County but also in the surrounding areas, and to help meet the basic needs of these individuals and families.  This endeavor became a reality through a grant from Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation of MN, and largely through the time, talent, and treasure from our local community people and businesses.

The Operation Community Connect (OCC) ran from 1-5 PM and served 205 guests.   Over 120 families were offered free services and information in an effort to support and encourage them as they strive to get their basic needs met.  Throughout the day, forty (40) community service providers offered assistance in areas that included, but were not limited to: education, employment, legal matters, financial issues, housing needs, children’s programs, food assistance, WIC, Abuse Advocates, and energy assistance programs.  Guests were also offered medical services provided by local and regional medical providers donating their services for dental and optical needs, foot care, glucose monitoring, flu vaccinations, mental health education and services, and massages.  An overwhelming amount of medical services were provided to the guests, here are just a few of the numbers: over 70 flu shots were given, over 33 kids’ and 15 adults’ teeth were cared for, FDL Min No Aya Win foot care was busy the entire time and referred some people to seek clinic care with critical feet concerns, Vision Pro optical helped over 4 guests with eye wear needs, and the massage providers had full chairs!  In order to help meet some of the basic needs of the families in attendance and to surround them with warmth this winter, beautifully made blankets, hats, and mittens were given away.  Also, through generous donations, bags of dried food goods were distributed along with gently used winter garments, bedding, and clothing. 

The OCC Planning Committee wishes to extend a special thank you to the following: Carlton VFW, Carlton County Public Health & Human Services, Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation of Minnesota, Lakes and Pines Community Action Council, the Faith Community of Carlton County (especially Esko Methodist Church, HOPE Lutheran, and Women of Northern Waters Presbytery), Pat Glasrud MN Dental Association, Steve Saari, Target Stores, Raiter clinic, Mercy Hospital, Peterson Drug in ML, Carlton County Sexual and Domestic Abuse Program, Ages to Ages at the Cloquet schools, Prenatal Early Childhood Coalition (PECC), Colgate, UCARE, the Woman, Infant, and Children (WIC) services, Jimmy LeKander, Finn & Feather hair styling, Marlene Waseen, Eclipse Construction, the City of Barnum, Pine County OCC, McDonnalds Restaurant, Como oil, Upper Lakes Foods, Lake View Restaurant, Karen Johnson, Bruce and Coleen Schmit, Nancy Granda, Brad & Sam Johnson, Scott Ostby, Bob and Jon Ray, Eric Teemple, Josh Livingston, Richard and Briane Romanawski, and Jean Saylor.  This event was successful because of the generous support and donations from these people and organizations. 

            While homelessness continues to be a problem that affects a wide spectrum of people from all walks of life, the OCC last Wednesday was one indication of how our community is attempting to work together to decrease those who are plagued with the malady of homelessness and help prevent more families from becoming homeless.  If you would like to be a part of our continued efforts to help families and people in need, please contact Rebekah Rud at 218-879-4511 or Donna LeKander at 218-878-3007.

Cloquet, Minn. (10/8/2009) — University of Minnesota Extension Dean Bev Durgan presented Barb Radke, Educator in Leadership and Civic Engagement and Cynthia Cohen, Community Coordinator, Horizons, with the Dean’s Award for Horizons Program Team Tuesday, Oct. 6 at the organization’s annual conference.

The award honors Radke and Cohen for their involvement with the Horizons Program Team.

Horizons works with communities having populations under 5,000 and poverty rates greater than 10% to address the goals of poverty reduction and prosperity growth. Since 2003, Extension’s Horizons Program Team has worked with Horizons from initial design to the present Horizons III cohort and alumni programs. In conjunction with six other state Extension organizations and funding from the Northwest Area Foundation, the program has reached almost 300 communities.

In delivering the Horizons program, this team has furthered Extension’s goal to reach a more diverse audience and has: addressed income disparity directly; generated a more sophisticated understanding of poverty among Extension staff; created more diversity in local leadership to include people from all income strata; brought diverse voices to the table, including working deeply in tribal communities; and garnered new advocates for poverty reduction through stories, evaluation, public speaking and earned media.

Through the work of the Horizons program team, Extension is reaching a more diverse audience and helping to improve the vitality of rural communities in poverty.

The Dean’s Award was presented during Extension’s annual Fall Program Conference.

9/28/2009

In attendance: Matt Ashmore, Jan Ashmore, Tarey Johnson, Kris Geer, Gerene Johnson, Cyndy Cohen, Barney Hollis

Connecting community resources discussion was held, changes were made to the plan and submitted to Cyndy for Grantors. Discussion was held regarding the Horizons Mega Meeting and Operation Community Connect. Operation Community Connect is being held on Wed, Oct 21st, from 1 to 5 at the Cloquet Armory. This event is a service to all of Carlton County. IT was decided that our Mega Meeting would be a duplication of this event and it was decided at this time to direct our effort in assisting the Operation Community Connect. Volunteer time, donation of funds and transportation assistance were discussed a ways to help in this effort.

People-helping-people Action team has not met yet and will schedule a meeting and report at the next Horizons Team Meeting.
Teen council members discussed their efforts to get kids interested and involved. Flyers were circulated and a meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, Sept, 29th at the Moose Lake City Park.

Leadership positions were selected as follows:
Co-chairs:
Cara Keinanen and Matt Ashmore
Note taker: Gerene Johnson
Finance Rep: Tarey Johnson
Public Relations: Jan Ashmore

Form will be developed at the next meeting to evaluate fund requests.Kris and Jan will present a draft at the next meeting.
Terms will begin with 3 m3mbers at 6 months and 3 members at 1 year positions so that all terms will not expire at the same time. Those members volunteering for 6 month positions are: Kris Geer, Jan Ashmore and Matt Ashmore. Terms can be renewed.
The monthly meeting time was set as the 4th Tuesday of every month at Gampers. The next meeting will be held on Oct 27th.
The fiscal agent will continue as Hope Lutheran. Our finance rep and Cyndy will meet with them to sit up this process.

Discussion was held regarding setting up Horizon’s binders for all team members. This will be reviewed at the next meeting. This binder would contain: minutes, agreements, member info, etc. Gerene will bring the original binder to the next meeting.

There will be a MN non-profit conference on Oct. 29th. Kris Geer and Jan Ashmore volunteered to attend.

A resource luncheon will be held on November 18th with local partners.

A grant-writing workshop will be held on Nov. 21st.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:20.

I’ve been introduced to an online film that does a great job of helping me better understand the tools of the 21st Century. When it comes to social media, there are dynamics at play that open the gifts of people for community action. Those gifts are our greatest resource.

One of the big components of the website that we’re going to bring to our area is allowing volunteers to step forward in an exciting network. Through discussions with others find a niche for taking part and building a better community through sharing and helping.

I would like to share this film with you and here is the link…

watch.usnowfilm.com

Enjoy,
Tarey

One of the projects that made it to the recent action teams, is one that has been going on for a long time.  This is why I support Horizons, they look at what the community is doing and find ways to move that work forward.  The project I’m talking about is Kids Against Hunger. I found out about it during the Horizons Leadership Plenty training.  What set it apart was that it was a High School “kid” who was telling me about it.  I put kid in quotes because he understood that feeding starving children is something all adults should have on our radar.  He had a very adult understanding of it.

I know it is on the radar for many of you, but maybe you haven’t seen a solution that you can back. Kids Against Hunger is one that I can see actually making a difference.  Please come to our event on September 19^th to see why.  It really helps to see the whole system in action to understand it.

For more information, please click here.

As for the connection to Horizons, one of the important pieces of the KAH system is that it connects you to the people you are helping.  For a kid, it can be difficult to learn abstract concepts like economic and political history and understand how they relate to a hungry kid in Haiti today.  That can be hard for adults too.  At a KAH event, you learn about that, talk to people who have been there, and immediately apply what you have learned to the solution.  By getting young people involved in this work, we will be creating the leaders of tomorrow that create the world we all want.

I was researching ideas for clarifying a vision for our upcoming website. The basic responsibility of the website is for reducing(or eliminating) poverty in our area. I ran across a mind blowing webpage from the Minnesota Legislature and discovered that the State has a goal of ending poverty by 2020… woah! It even has a an acronym of LCEP(Legislative Commission to End Poverty). One line in their Mission Statement actually described the ambitions of our web site:

“(g) Government is neither solely responsible for alleviating poverty nor removed from that responsibility.  Government is the vehicle by which people order their lives based on their shared vision.  Society is well served when people bring their values in the public arena.  This convergence around issues of poverty and the common good leads people of varying tradition to call on government to make a critical commitment to overcoming poverty.”

I highlighted the line that hit home for us. In the 21st Century that public arena is a social network web site, in my opinion.

Our Action Team will consist of folks that are interested in developing policy, whereas this web site belongs to ALL community members and their vision for a vibrant community where poverty comes to an end. It appears to me that, our success will be exploring the possibilities of a shared vision for our area. Knowing that there will be opportunities for seeing that vision supported.

You are invited to join The Connecting Resources Action Team by contacting Tarey Johnson by email: tarey@northwoods-exposure.com or calling 218-658-4446

Otherwise, watch for the launch of the website in the coming months and know that it is important to YOU and our community.

A perspective that demands notice is realizing that there are many websites showing up that offer “tools.” At first I found the notion to be a curious one, but when I spent some time thinking about it… it’s true. The tools of the 21st century are digital. Someone pointed out that Flickr is a tool. It allows you to publish your photos for sharing. It turns a piece of the Net into a coffee table, where photo albums are typically found.

I started to notice that whenever I was at a website that required me to Login, I was being qualified to use their tools. Registration usually only requires my email address and at first I was thinking that this was only for harvesting emails to bug me later, but not so. Logging in weeds out the rif raf. Having me provide my email address makes me accountable for my actions. After all, using their tools is a privilege. Creating an account also provides me with my very own personalized toolbox.

The Connecting Resources Action Team is about to embark on launching a website that will be offering “tools” for the community to use. I can appreciate it when people say they can barely handle email. Anytime we encounter something as new to us as this, it seems so challenging. It may be more helpful to take on the perspective that we’re all learning how to use these new tools. Learning how these tools work and applying them to our lives will open up doors to building a rewarding lifestyle in this digital age.

It is my hope that when this website becomes available that we help each other use the tools found there for the rewards it will bring to us all.

Simply stated….money affords variety. In this light then, poverty is paralyzing. To participate in community requires even the simplest of issues, like being in the right place at the right time.

Here in lies the value of the Internet. The government has insured access to the Internet in making sure that we all pay into a fund that is billed to us on our phone bills. This fund goes to schools, health care facilities and libraries. Libraries are a valuable access to this network, because anyone can reach the Internet regardless what environment they live in.

What needs to take shape is a community well networked. Just as today’s corporate environments have rows of cubicles connecting all the facets of a company. Allowing the ability to communicate and coordinate everyone’s efforts for accomplishing a mission. Our communities need this function to accomplish a societal goal of quality of life for all.

Some critical elements that I would like to see develop with our “Connecting Resources Action Team,” is… inclusion. The ability to include those of us in poverty to break those chains with their paralyzing effects.

Education is critical to solving any problem. It may be eye opening to construct a format on our website for those suffering the effects of poverty to tell their story. Hence, opening the door to not only understanding, but solutions.

Another concept would be to nurture an entrepreneurial spirit for those that only understand working for a boss. Entrepreneurial is a big scary word, but if you boil it down it really can be simply working for many bosses(customers/clients), rather than relying on just one boss. Many companies have started with two customers and grown from there. Rural communities don’t have day labor companies because we don’t typically have a bunch of industries to accommodate, like in cities. We do have needs that can be met with access to those who are offering an extra set of hands and those looking for specific talents. Networking has this inherent property. The ability to make yourself available or the ability to access those offering to help. Having a presence on the Internet makes you available 24/7 should you be someone who is being sought.

I’m happy to say that individuals are signing up to build the Connecting Resources Action Team for realizing a networked community vision and want to extend an invitation to you. This is an ambitious project and requires participation on many levels.

Please contact me at tarey@northwoods-exposure.com

What if… there was a website that reported on issues of quality of life. For instance, currently the city of Moose Lake is looking into developing low to moderate housing. These types of issues get limited attention in the regular media, but that’s understandable. However, there should be a place where the community can access stories that build on themselves as progress for these projects move forward. When policies are being developed, it is important that the word gets out for due consideration can be expressed by all concerned. A lot of times these type of initiatives require due dilegence by the community and this requires a different style of reporting.

If you’re someone that did well in English class or know someone who has a flair for jounalism, then you should consider being a part of the Connecting Resources Action Team.

Please throw your hat in the ring by contacting tarey@northwoods-exposure.com…. thx!