Has everyone noticed the gorgeous green stuff growing in the plot near the Zion church in Juliaetta? Congratulations to the Pug Marks Service organization and all the youth and adults who have planted, watered, and cared for the vegetable garden. Looks like the corn will indeed be knee-high by the Fourth of July!

Some of the produce will go to the Food Bank. This is a great example not only of youth and adults working together and gaining new skills and relationships, but also of celebrating Juliaetta’s heritage as a superb location for growing vegetables (those famous “Juliaetta tomatoes”).

Kendrick-Juliaetta and the 7 Ridges Horizons partnered with Troy Horizons to host this three-day workshop (details below) with about 26 participants. Alana Sneve from the Harvest Lighthouse Cornerstone catered dinner for three nights - and it was delicious.

Workshops participants made valuable connections with residents of other communities and with the Small Business Development Center and other resource providers. They expressed the need for a regional vision of the economic future and they want to maintain a regional network of entrepreneurs.

Would you like to see another workshop like this one in the area? (If so, please comment on this blog and/or contact the Two Degrees Northwest folks –see info below)

Entrepreneurial Training Series
Introduction to Entrepreneurship: Starting a business, marketing, finance and networking to support entrepreneurship in our region.Format–A series of 3 workshop sessions to be held in 3 separate locations. You may attend any or all sessions at each location. See below for session descriptions.

Kamiah, ID
Kamiah Welcome Center
518 Main Street April 29 Session 1 6pm-9pm (PST)
May 1 Session 2 6pm-9pm (PST)
May 6 Session 3 6pm-9pm (PST)

Kendrick, ID
Kendrick Fire Hall
518 Main Street

April 8 Session 1 6pm-9pm (PST)
April 21 Session 2 6pm-9pm (PST)
April 28 Session 3 6pm-9pm (PST)

Plummer ID
Coeur d’Alene Tribal Wellness Center
1100 A Street

April 9 Session 1 5pm-8pm (PST)
April 14 Session 2 5pm-8pm (PST)
April 23 Session 3 5pm-8pm (PST)Session 1) Business start-upSession 2)

Marketing (with specialized breakouts for arts, farm-related, and hospitality businesses)Session 3) Financial management. (with a focus on resources to help small businesses, establishing mentoring relationships for new entrepreneurs and creating networks/mechanisms for fostering an entrepreneurial environment)

The emphasis of this training is not to teach every detail of starting or growing a business, but rather to foster relationships that will support small business start-up and help existing businesses become more successful. Therefore, identifying the existing resources in your communities/area is going to be important to the success of this effort!

Contacts:
Two Degrees Northwest
Lorie Higgins higgins@uidaho.edu or 885-9717
Elizabeth Carney ecarney@uidaho.edu

It has been over a year that members of our community have been working in the Northwest Area Foundation’s Horizons program locally. There are a very few people that have been involved from the very beginning of the Horizons program here in Kendrick/Juliaetta. Even though the person I write about wasn’t involved in the very first step, she is one member of our community that has been actively involved more fully and deeply than any other member of the program. This person has attended Facilitator Training and been a Facilitator. She was one of three from our community to go to a three day Leadership Plenty Training while traveling back and forth to Lewiston one of the evenings, where the others stayed, to keep a prior commitment to her “job”. She helped lead local Leadership Development classes. This person was very active in the preparations for the Vision Rally and was honored to be able to introduce the Rally speaker/facilitator, Davie Buerle, to officers at her place of work. She did not disappear when it was time to have the vision launch. She stepped right in to help and was named a co-chair of an action team. She was unable to fulfill that position, but it did not keep her from being active in relation to that action team. She was instrumental in developing their most successful project - Pug Marks CSI and is the newly formed advisory board vice president. She has also made herself available to help the action team responsible for getting out the community newsletter. And, at times has sat in on meetings dealing with leadership development.

All the while she has been involved in Horizons, she has held a full time and part-time job. She has also found time to further her knowledge with workshops offered by Horizons and other groups such the Clarkston School District’s offering of Ruby Payne’s Framework for Understanding Poverty. She has mentored at an afterschool mentoring program for grade school students, participated in a scholarship program that required a large committment of time, and helped plan, cook and serve meals at the Salvation Army Meal Site in Lewiston four times in this past year. She was involved in after “work” athletic programs from August until February. She is an active member of A.C.T.I.O.N. (Advisory Council to Improve Our Neighborhood) serving as it’s vice-president, an Ambassador for LCYAC (Latah County Youth Advocacy Council), and participated in the U of I’s Humanities Outreach Program. She is an officer in her “department” at work and has been noted as doing her “job” very well. 

I am sure I have forgotten some of her services to her community, but I have never failed to notice that she almost always has a smile on her face and a can-do attitude. Her part-time job is as a janitor at her church. Her full-time job depends on the time of year. In the summers she works as a lifeguard and swim instuctor assistant in Moscow. The rest of the year she is a student in the junior class at Kendrick High School.  Do you know who she is? Has any one other person done more for Horizons in Kendrick/Juliaetta?

Someone told me it was my turn again to answer the weekly question when I had time. (I have no time.) 

Reflective Questions:
• Looking back, what is one (or more) skill or leadership trait you have developed from participating in Horizons (maybe from Study Circles or LeadershipPlenty or from the hands on work going on in your communities right now)? How has participation in the program changed you? What about your community? Are there specific examples of things happening in your community that wouldn’t have happened without Horizons?
• Bonus reflective question: How has the blogging experienced affected you? (please edit any inappropriate language, hahaha trust me, I feel your pain!!)

pineappleprincess - I already answered most of this question months ago. As for what would not have happened without Horizons - my mom’s dream of Pug Marks may have always remained a dream. Bonus Answer: The blogging experience  has affected me in a couple of ways. I have started a new blog (Tiger Talk) for youth or anyone else who wants to blog. I also know enough to teach people how to blog.

Here is the old post -

It Has Broadened My Horizons! 

January 19th, 2008 by pineappleprincess

~ by Josi K. McConnell-Soong When the Horizons program, which focuses on poverty and how to help eliminate it from our community, first came to  Kendrick-Juliaetta, I volunteered to be a facilitator for the study circles. That had me going to St. Marie’s to a training on how to facilitate in a productive way. I helped facilitate a study circle group that was a mix of adults and teens. It was great hearing everyone’s ideas and opinions on what is good (a lot!) and what needs to be improved in our community to help eliminate poverty.A few months after the facilitator training I had an opportunity to be one of three people sent to a three day leadership training provided by Horizons. It was an awesome training. I made a lot of new friends from other communities in our area , a few even my age. I came away from that training a certified Leadership Plenty Trainer and feeling that Connie Reid and Amy Lynne are two awesome ladies and I am glad to consider them friends.  We were able to train new leaders in our community with the skills we learned.My involvement in Horizons has given me an opportunity to meet some of the most active and caring citizens of our community and to get to know better the great citizens I already knew. When given the chance to work with caring, motivated adults it is not at all boring as some teens might think. It is really great to have people want to know my opinion and really care what it is. I would encourage any teen or young adult to try to become more involved in our community. The “Live News Letter” meetings at 6:00pm the third Thursday of the month would be a good place to start. At the “Live News Letter” an overview of what is happening in the community is given and a chance to find out what projects are being developed to help make our community even better.

There are more trainings coming up that may be of interest. Trainings are usually intended for anyone in our community that is interested. Most of the trainings are free of charge, and the expenses of the ones that cost can often be paid or partially paid by funds available through the Horizons program.

In addition to Facilitator Training and Leadership Plenty Training, I have also been trained to blog and to teach others how to blog. I can help others set up their own blog and learn to navigate through their blog site. And of course, this blog is always looking for anyone that would like to add articles of community interest.

On February 9th I will attend another training. This one is Ruby Payne Framework for Understanding Poverty. This workshop discusses how individuals in poverty think and act differently than those people in the middle and upper economic classes.

I would also like to attend a workshop on Feb 5th - New Board Member Orientation - understand the fundamentals of operating as an effective governing body. I hope to be an active participant in our new community service group “Pug Marks” and the information from this workshop could help me be better prepared.

 All these opportunities are available to anyone in our community. You just need the interest in increasing your knowledge. Hopefully that new knowledge can be used to help others and I am sure what I have learned will help me not only now, but in my future.

Scavenger Hunt Question:
• Which of the Idaho Horizons community blogs has information about April being Child Abuse Awareness month? This website also provides information about Youth Suicide Prevention.

pineappleprincess - The community is… Silver Valley

Reflective Questions:

• What’s next in Horizons for your community? Are your Action Teams planning activities in the next 2 months? How do those activities relate to the 3 legs of Horizons: Poverty reduction, Leadership Development and Community Mobilization?

mountainmama: Our community is going to keep up the good work that has been started through the push Horizons has given us.

The Community Communications Action Team will publish their 4th newsletter that is mailed to every postal customer in the Kendrick-Juliaetta and 7 Ridges community. The response has been good to the newsletter from people wanting to include information for it. This time we are going to make a concerted effort to get feedback on what those receiving it think about it. We are going to take personal polls and report back to the Team what we find out. We are also checking with businesses to see if they think it is valuable enough to support through sponsorship. We are determined to continue it if it is viewed as a good communication tool.

The Bridge Builders are starting to step back from Pug Marks CSI a little and let it operate with its new Board of Directors (adults) and Advisory Board (youth). Pug Marks CSI applyed for and received non profit status from the State of Idaho. We are finalizing our by laws in preparation for filing for 501(c)(3) status. Without the help of the Bridge Builders Action Team this community service group would still just be a dream of mine. Bridge Builders has plans to do a Foxfire type project of having youth interview people in the community and publish in some form the resulting stories. They are also currently partnering with ACTION to bring training to our community on intergenerational communication and on how established groups in the community can make youth a part of their program.

The Leadership Development Action Team has also been instrumental in the start up of Pug Marks Community Service Incorporated. The service projects and random acts of kindness planned by the group all need a project leader. Leadership Development is helping to insure that those leaders have the skills they need.

The Economic Development Action Team has been very active in promoting our community by organizing monthly sales highlighting our antique stores, the Grange sale, and new bakery. They are attempting to feature artists in the future. They are also working with the established Farmer’s Market to provide more on Saturdays starting on May 10. They are looking for people or groups interested in providing an activity or demonstration during market hours. Musicians would be welcomed. Buying some banners and signs is on the agenda for the very near future.

Through the efforts of each of these Action Teams people in the community are being kept better informed and better served. The Community Newsletter lets everyone know what is going on and what is new in the community. The Bridge Builders continue to work at bridging the gap between young and old and through them Pug Marks CSI was made possible. Pug Marks’ latest service project had 6 adults and approximately 14 youth working together sweeping the sidewalks of Kendrick. (Juliaetta had 3 adults and 2 youth sweep there last month.) By advertising in the Money Saver, the Economic Development Team has brought traffic into town. And Leadership Development is making it possible for those who have never taken a leadership role to have the skills and support to make them successful.

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