Greenfield, IA

Congratulations Ben Baudler and Kelsie Cass on being selecting Herbert Hoover Uncommon Students. Only 15 Iowa students are awarded this designation each year and the 2008 class includes two of our Horzions participants. They both participated in study circles and the LeadershipPlenty® classes. Cass is also a member of the steering committee.
Each Uncommon Student had to identify a project they will complete this year. Both of them selected projects related to priorities identified by the Greenfield Horizons project. Ben will be writing a series of preschool books around the theme, Nodaway Valley: A Great Place to Live and Grow. (quality early child care and education). Kelsie will be conducting cooking classes (Cooking for Life) for parents with young children as part of her work in the area of Food for All.
Our community should be really proud of these young leaders.

One of the first tasks completed after our Action Forum was the creation of a community directory. Many directories have been distributed, but that doesn’t substitute for actually connecting with some of the service providers. During the Horizons Community Celebration a number of programs set up tables and visited with community members attending the supper. Public health, the Neighborhood Center (fuel assistance, food pantry), Child Care Resource and Referral, Social Security, Master Gardener, Methodist Church Food Pantry, local banks, and Henry A Wallace Country Life Center all had someone there to visit with people. Of course, copies of the resource directory were available, too.

The Adair County Hot Shots 4-H club and Growing Strong Families program had kids activities which were very popular. All segments of the community were represented in the approximate 175 attendance. Families with young children, teens, business community members, religious leaders, elderly, and residents with disabilities.

The Food for All Task Force established the celebration as a drop off point for food or cash to support local food pantries. 105.85 in cash was collected along with approximately 200 food items. These items help stock nearly empty shelves at the two local food pantries.

At last the idea of a cooking class featuring nutrition information and low-cost recipes for families with young children has started. On Sunday June 29th, 11 people met for the first workshop in the Cooking For Life series. There were six participants and five mentors.

The food group feature for the day was calcium so we did an activity to improve label reading skills and think about where you can get calcium.

The main course was Mexican Mess, a type of Mexican lasagna. It includes cheese, a calcium rich food. We didn’t eat the food on site, because the idea was to take it home for supper. One of the participants already reported she served it for supper and her family loved it!

We prepared home-made pudding. It was cool because everyone learned it was easy to do, a lot cheaper than the little prepared packs and a better source of calcium.

4-H’ers volunteered to watch the kids while the adults cooked. They had fun coloring and playing with playdoh.

At the end of the session all of the participants received a set of Pyrex dishes, all of the ingredients in the meals, bags to put them in, and two cans of green beans to cook at home.

I think everyone had a great time for the first session and learned a lot. They identified they would like to learn to make ham Balls or meat loaf, cheesy macaroni corn, and apple crisp at the July session.

There is a lot of support from the community. The Adair County 4-H Youth Council, Nodaway Valley Market, Fareway, Pamida, Thrivent, Summerset Citizens, and Empowerment have all given cash resources for this project.

Hopefully there will be a number of benefits to this project. Goals of the projects are to build a strong community support system for young families and provide an opportunity for young families to develop new skills in cooking, organization, planning, and budgeting.

A new model for parent education is emerging since the Horizons Study Circles. When a grant for Community Partnership for Protecting Children was written to Prevent Child Abuse Iowa, several key questions from Study Circles were considered. How are parents involved in the decision-making and program implementation? What barriers need to be addressed so parents can participate?
The Great Beginnings curriculum, a 5-session program, was selected to receive a grant of approximately $3000. Parents were invited to participate in the facilitator training. There was a special effort to engage low-resource parents. Child care was provided so they could attend the training. As a result, ISU Extension Families Specialist and the Growing Strong Families parent educator have teamed up with two different parents to offer the series twice within the community. Both the parents and the parent educator are paid for their facilitation services from grant funds. The grant also provided funds for child care at each session and a light meal.  Several organizations also provided resources to the program including FACT Empowerment and Family Rewards.
Recently one of the parents serving as a facilitator shared her personal story with the State Empowerment Board. She talked about moving to the community, working to blend families, and meeting the parent educator at a WIC clinic. It was obvious how her confidence had grown and how empowering it was for her to be asked to become involved as a facilitator. Since she got involved in a leadership role, she has also accepted employment at a local business and already has received a promotion.
Getting professionals to think about assets of families and involving the people they serve in leadership roles can have a huge impact on both individuals and the community. This is just an example of how thinking differently about how to deliver a service can have a big pay-off.

Governor Chet Culver announces the names of the 48 school districts in Iowa receiving state funds for 2008-2009 under the Statewide Voluntary Preschool Program for Four-Year-Old Children. Nodaway Valley is one of the districts !   This amounts to approximately $3000 per student with a projection of 50 participants totalling $150,000 brought into the local school district and community.  In additon 5 new jobs will be created with two certified teachers and 3 paraprofessionals to be hired for the program.  The Statewide Voluntary Preschool Program for Four-Year-Old Children was established in 2007 when Governor Culver signed House File 877. The purpose of the statewide preschool program is to expand the opportunity for Iowa’s young children to access quality preschool environments and enter school ready to learn. With these newly approved programs, the state will be providing access to approximately 4,341 more 4-year-olds. Governor Culver said, “Every child in Iowa deserves the best start as they begin their educational journey. With this announcement, we are offering a greater number of Iowa’s youngest citizens the opportunity for a solid beginning.” Districts applied for the competitive state grant to provide at least 10 hours a week of quality preschool instruction through collaborative community partnerships. A total of 161 school districts applied for the grant. The Iowa Department of Education selected the school districts to receive funding based on several criteria. Priority was given to high-poverty districts currently without preschool programs. Also considered were collaborative efforts with community early childhood partners and district size. The 2008 legislature appropriated $15 million for 2008-2009, which is the second school year the preschool program has been available to Iowa school districts. The planning done as part of the Horizons project was instrumental in preparing the grant. The grant readers noted the high level of planning by the community, planning to serve low-income children, and commitment to quality early children education. Now that the grant has been awarded, a number of the Quality Early Childhood Care and Education task force will be helping with implementation.

Horizons member Joan F. hadn’t ever addressed a body of elected officials before, but her points were clear and convincing as she spoke about the need for high quality early childhood education at the Nodaway Valley School Board meeting. She referred back to what she learned in the study circles and talked about the priority of quality learning environments for our young children from the visioning process. She helped school board members see the clear connection between providing high quality preschool and poverty reduction. It was obvious what she said came from her heart, but was based on strong facts.

The school board meeting presentation came after months of hard work. Joan and several other members of the quality child care and education group participated in a process to explore the possibility of the school district applying for Voluntary Preschool funding. The school board moved to pursue the funding opportunity. The Horizons co-chairs of the quality early childhood education and care work group wrote a letter of support for the grant application, another first.

The community won’t hear whether or not we’re selected to be a Voluntary Preschool site until June 9th, but no matter what the outcome the process was heavily influenced by work conducted as part of Horizons. Some examples follow:

1. People most impacted by the decision, young families, were well represented on the exploratory committee. There was a conscious effort to engage parents from all income levels. The committee make-up and approach empowered young families to get involved.

2. Barriers to participation often faced by young families with limited incomes and support systems were removed. Meetings were held in the early evening. Free child care was provided and used.

3. Data from the Horizons visioning process was used in the process along with short easy to read research articles about the long-term impact of quality preschool.

4. There was open discussion about current practice of “labeling” low-income children and their families by placing them in “special program.”

5. Community informational meetings for parents with young children were held after the decision to apply for the grant was made to gather additional data and answer questions. Free child care was provided.

An agreement was made with the existing state funded preschool serving low-income children that will allow children to be placed in any classroom that meets quality standards, in the event the proposal is funded. This new practice will remove the stigma of being placed in a “low-income” program and allow the integration of children of all income levels to participate together in rich learning activities.

The jobs task force asked Jason White, Midwest Partnership, to provide insights into the challenges of attracting good paying jobs to our community and possible ways to overcome challenges. Jason met with the steering committee and other interested community members to explain the need for community infrastructure. We are already working on some infrastructure issues such as quality childcare and high quality education. However, prospective employers also want to be able to visualize themselves within the community up and running. This is why spec buildings have been a staple of the economic development world. Spec buildings are expensive and often don’t have all the features that a potential business wants. Jason shared the concept of Virtual Spec Buildings with the group. This is being used in other states. He showed actual examples of a virtual spec building and explained how it could be customized based on the type or size of business.

As a group, we have the least amount of internal expertise in job creation so bringing an expert like Jason was very important. He helped the group see a bigger picture of job creation and how investing in cutting edge technology might be able to help attract employers without tying up a lot of money in a building. It was also reassuring that some of the issues that we do have more expertise in and have been actively working in are part of a strong infrastructure.

Each year Iowa 4-H holds a Legislative Day for junior high and high school age students. As part of the event 4-H’ers have a chance to explore important issues. I was asked to present a workshop on poverty because of my involvement in the Horizons project. I partnered with my County Extension Education Director to plan and deliver the workshop. Actually, we delivered it twice due to the high level of interest.

I wanted the workshop to be as hands-on as possible so I designed a Poverty Jeopardy game to help teach 4-H’ers and their adult leaders more about poverty. I went back to the areas we really examined in Study Circles and put together different categories including food, abbreviations, education, employment, and by the numbers (statistics). Each category had a range of questions all varying in difficulty.  All of the questions had to do with poverty, at the local, state and national levels.

The participants of this workshop had a great time playing and hopefully learned a lot. Many youth hadn’t ever thought about the gap between minimum wage and a “living wage” required to meet basics. The difference in earning power based on level of education was an eye-opener to many.

 I had a great time presenting because I had the opportunity to look at people’s views on why other people are in poverty.  Many of the people, if they hadn’t known it before, realized that poverty can be very situational.  Often times a certain event will happen, like a major illness or loss of a job, that will cause the people to fall into poverty.  The vast majority of the participants were interested in exploring how good education, creation of jobs, and supportive services that builds on family assets could help reduce poverty. Other participants were very opinionated and weren’t interested in listening to other points of view, convinced that everyone living in poverty is simply lazy. I realized that although most people really want to be part of the solution, some would rather blame others. We need to keep doing education on poverty for those who do have an open mind and help move them to action. It would be easy to be discouraged by people who put up barriers, but by surrounding yourself with others who truly care and want to reduce poverty like the Horizons project has done for my community it is easier to stay on track.

At the end of the workshop we asked participants to identify ways they could get involved in fighting poverty within their community. Almost everyone was able to provide a concrete way and some that attended as a 4-H club group were ready to go right to work on a project. We tried to help them think about how they could make their 4-H club a welcoming place for youth from all income levels. Hopefully some of them will go back and examine their own practices and make changes. For many it just helping raise awareness and giving them a chance to talk about how they can have a positive impact.

The Nodaway Valley Middle School students held the second annual Join Hands Day on Wednesday May 21^st, 2008.  All middle school students, and staff, along with community members worked together to complete projects in the community. Both years, the students have selected to do a Food for All project. I along with student representatives and community members planned a project related to the issue of food and poverty in our community.  We came up with hosting a bake sale at the Fontanelle Community Center where all proceeds of the bake sale will be donated to the local food pantries.   We also decided to add an interesting twist to the project.  Instead of paying for items like you do at a regular bake sale, you would purchase your baked goods by donating a canned food item.

At a presentation the day before to the Chamber, members donated $113 to assist the food pantries. In addition, Bon’s Bake House owner went back and made bars for the bake sale as did another Chamber member. A number of teachers and students also baked along with some community members. It was exciting to see individuals who haven’t been involved with any of the Food for Everyone projects get involved. I am realizing the power of asking for help.  It might be only 3-4 people that volunteer, but a few people can make a big difference.

Ten middle school members and one adult stayed at the middle school and collected items from the middle school food drive.  They counted the items and divided them between the two food pantries.  Once they inventoried the items, they identified food groups were more items were needed. They went to the grocery store and learned how to manage their money wisely by purchasing $52.00 worth of items to add to the donations. 

Meanwhile at the Community Center ten project members worked at a bake sale.  The students raised a total of $372.43 and collected 49 canned goods as part of the bake sale.  We added this to the number of food items that were collected at the middle school and got a total of 263 items donated.  The cash will be used to buy meat certificates for the Food Pantries.

 The day was extremely successful and I believe students learned a lot about the spirit of giving and the importance of community involvement.  Hopefully every student left that day with a sense of accomplishment and pride in what they did.  I know that I was very proud of them. 

The May meeting of the Greenfield Chamber/Main Street was devoted to Horizons.

Steering committee member Carol Baudler gave an overview and talked about the priorities and progress on the priorities.

In addition, the chamber meeting provided a chance to showcase the involvement of the middle school with the Food for All projects. I have been working with a team of 2 adults and 4 middle school students in preparation for Join Hands Day on a special project to support local food pantries. Two middle school students shared information about a food drive taking place at the school, plus their plans for a bake sale as part of the Join Hands Day to take place on May 21^st. They asked people to support the bake sale by bringing food or buying food. Many Chamber members choose to give cash donations at the end of the meeting to support the project. $113 dollars were collected for the Food For All effort to stock the shelves at the 2 local food pantries.

Even more importantly youth leaders continue to emerge. It is obviously they are committed to making the community a better place in many ways including working to reduce the negative impact of poverty within our community. I feel like I am developing a whole new set of skills as I take on the role of mentoring middle school students to be leaders. I have found that in order to find new leaders you first have to ask them to participate.

I am impressed by how willing adults within the community have become in partnering with youth. Several community adults helped plan the food drive and Bake Sale with the team of middle school youth as part of Join Hands Day. They were true partners. In addition, it was obvious at the Chamber meeting, that the adults wanted to support and encourage youth leadership.