Bert Caldwell: Program pulls poverty out by the grass roots
A program managed by Washington State University and funded by a Minnesota-based foundation is growing a new generation of leaders who are addressing poverty in dozens of small towns around the state, including many in the Spokane area.
The foundation’s program, called Horizons, spans eight states. It begins with community discussions, sometimes revelations, about poverty in the area. During the second phase of the 18-month process, the focus is on teaching leadership to individuals who may not have seen themselves in that role. Finally, they create a vision for their community, and identify the resources that can make it happen.
Sometimes, it does not take all that much.
In one South Dakota town, just opening a day care helped. Another in Montana learned how to use eBay as a business tool. A new cell phone tower did the trick for another community.
In Chewelah, where an abbreviated, three-month version of Horizons was tested, the result was a new restaurant, the purchase of a building for potential community and religious use, and the possibility of new adult education offerings.
Now the community is joining five others in Stevens County that are just beginning the full, 18-month version. Others in Pend Oreille, Grant, Ferry and Lincoln counties are also participating. The northeast Washington counties are among the state’s poorest, but that doesn’t phase Horizon supporters.
“We’ve tapped into a whole new group of people,” says Debra Kollock, the WSU extension agent who helps run Horizons in Stevens County.
Too often, she says, communities rely on “STP” — the same 10 people — to do everything. Horizons expands that group, creating a network that may not provide a direct economic benefit, but one that assures the poor and isolated can find help.
“The economic piece to me is, no matter what you own or operate, poverty affects your business,” says Kollock.
“There’s a lot of emotional and mental poverty,” agrees Krisan LeHew, who participated in the mini-Horizon process. “It’s not just about poverty being numbers.”
LeHew sits on the Chewelah Economic Development Board, but says she feels much more confident about her leadership abilities thanks to Horizons.
Chewelah has economic assets — a ski area, golf course and casino, for example — but needs more businesses that can staunch the flow of youth leaving the area, she says. More educational opportunities would help, too.
In Kettle Falls, Carol Bezold must recruit one more participant by Monday to assure that her community qualifies for Horizons.
The retired extension agent says the program is already a winner because nine facilitators have been trained to conduct the study circles that kick off Horizons. The group includes retirees, professionals, a home business owner and a high school senior.
“I see it as a way to pass the torch,” says Bezold, who retired in Kettle Falls 10 years ago, but had worked as extension agent in Stevens County for years before that.
“It’s going to be interesting to see what they come up with,” she says.
The money, about $350,000, comes from the Northwest Area Foundation, which was founded in 1934 by the son of railroad magnate J.J. Hill, for whom the Hillyard neighborhood in Spokane is named. In the late 1990s, the foundation decided to refocus its impressive assets — almost $480 million at the end of 2006 — on combating rural and tribal poverty in the eight northern tier states stretching from Minnesota and Iowa in the Midwest to Washington and Oregon in the West.
Foundation spokeswoman Susan Buckles stresses the Horizons program is not about money. A community can apply for a $10,000 grant to begin executing its new strategies, but that will be the end of its relationship with the foundation, if not WSU. The foundation also sponsors other programs that provide more generous, long-term funding.
But if Horizons succeeds, money will be secondary.
“We’re excited about the people who are standing up for their communities,” Buckles says.