Save this date: January 7th: Leadership Plenty

Please join the solution:

Leadership Plenty Training provided by WSU and Horizons will be a thought provoking training, teaching future and current leaders how to accomplish group goals and tasks. This training is offered to everyone in the Grand Coulee Dam Area including (Nespelem, Elmer City, Coulee Dam, Grand Coulee, Electric City, Delano and outlying areas. This is being offered for free, dinner is provided, child care is available. Also Adult home care is also provided. Local instructors will guide and teach as we learn how to use the assets that are currently available in our community, break down barriers that exist and keep us from moving forward as a team, preparing action plans, having a vision and evaluations, and much more.

This training is beneficial to Business owners, Council members, group organizers, employees looking to lead, High School Youth, and anyone else looking to further thier knowledge of Leading.


Event Details:

First Meeting: January 7, 2009

Contact:

Jesse Utz - production@couleegraphics.com

Location:

Community Church in Coulee Dam

Event Time:

5:30pm - 9:30pm

Link to PowerPoint about Leadership Plenty
Leadership Plenty Modules and Images

HORIZONS: Community Leaders Reducing Poverty
Working together to move from poverty to prosperity for all.

All Things Are Possible

On Thursday, December 11th, Jesse Utz facilitated members of previous Study Circles to share the dialogues of the different group suggestions to move the community forward in an effort to reduce poverty. Each group presented its ideas.

The Sunday group, led by Kevin Lind, imagined that our community could be "A community welcoming opportunity and tradition."




Mary Schilling explained that her Thursday group envisioned this community as embracing the ideals of "unity, harmony, growth, vision, and opportunity."


Another Thursday Study Circle team, explained by Bob Lambert, discovered that this community already supports many resources, including food banks and transportation systems, but that not everyone knows about them. People are unaware partly because of the many different entities represented by our community: five towns, four counties, two park systems, and the Colville Conferderated Tribes. Shelly Stine already has created a resource book based on these areas.

The consensus of this grass-roots group of engaged citizens is to consider these possibilites:
a community center, economic development, child care, community resource guide, elderly care, and town consolidation.



Next, the participants chose areas of focus to begin a process of problem-solving. Each Action Team/Task Force will recruit more people to be involved; the goal is to energize the community into actions needed to complete the solutions.

Rick Morton's comment summed up the general feeling of hope: "If we can make a sense of community, then maybe we can progress to unity."

With that idea, and with new members (hopefully YOU), these task forces will
begin the basic actions:

Future Action Meetings

Community Center
Focus Leader: Mary Schilling
Amanda Poch
Steve Carson

Next meeting:
January 8th
5:30 PM
Siam

Resource Guide and Resource Center
Focus Leader: Shelly Stine
Alan Cain
Sheri Edwards
Roberta Haines

Next meeting:
January 8th
5:30 PM
Alan’s

Economic Development
Focus Leader: Rick Morton
Scott Hunter

Next meeting:
January 8th
7:00 PM
Rick’s

Child Care
Focus Leader: Kevin Lind

Next meeting:
January 24th
2:00 PM
Town Hall Meeting
Community Church, Coulee Dam

Future Teams:
Town Consolidation
Elderly Care

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Finally, Nate Piturachsatit explained that the Leadership Plenty Team (Amanda Poch, Jesse Utz, and Nate) will begin training community members in civic skills to identify problems and plan actions to solve those problems. Those meetings commence from January 7th to March 18 with clock hours available. Come to some or all of the meetings at the Community Church to develop skills that will benefit you in many ways: personal, community, work, politics, etc.

This is a process -- not all citizens have participated in every meeting, but each knows that the goal is to engage the citizens of this community to help solve the problems of poverty by participating on three levels as each citizen can: individual, group, and community. The action/task groups above are starting points, and not all members will attend all meetings. So, please, consider attending some of the meetings to help out. Contact Mary Schilling at 633 3033 or mschilling@gcdsd.org

Come help develop the "unity" in "community."

As Amanda Poch understands after her training, "All things are possible."

Join us:

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HORIZONS: Community Leaders Reducing Poverty
Working together to move from poverty to prosperity for all.

Contact Mary Schilling at 633 3033 or mschilling@gcdsd.org

Stories in the Community: Bob

Who: Bob Lambert

Occupation: Minister, Grand Coulee Church of the Nazarene
Years in Community: 9

Education --- HS, Year; College, Year: Moreno Valley High School class of 1975, 3 years at Point Loma Nazarene University San Diego CA.

Favorite community memory: The building of the original skate park

Hopes for community: That we will come together and truly be a community

Why you are part of the project: Hopefully to make a difference

HORIZONS: Community Leaders Reducing Poverty
Working together to move from poverty to prosperity for all.

Stories in the Community: Jeremy

Who: Jeremy Miller, 25,

I enjoy hunting, fishing, skiing, and baseball. I enjoy helping out our youth and am currently a YoungLife leader and an assistant coach for the high school wrestling team. I train a group of kids in baseball once a week. I truly believe it is my purpose in life to love God and that he has put me here to guide our youth to him.

Occupation: U.S. Park Ranger

Years in Community: 23

Education: Lake Roosevelt 2001 ; WSU 2005 w/ Bachelor of Science in Natural Resources (Major in Wildland Recreation Management)

Favorite community memory: Making the "Colorama Mud Bowl" in my senior class for the Colorama Parade

Hopes for community: To find some object or idea to base our town around, be it the dam or our school athletics...our town seems to be missing a sense of spirit, in many ways.

Why I am part of the project: No idea, I (or maybe it's other people) tend to get myself involved in lots of stuff somehow; I guess it's just another item to add to all that stuff

HORIZONS: Community Leaders Reducing Poverty
Working together to move from poverty to prosperity for all.

Stories in the Community: Shelly

Who: Shelly Marie Stine, Ed.M.

Occupation: LRHS Resource Room Teacher

Years in Community: 30 plus

Education: Ed. M. -Summer 2008-Special Education

Favorite community memory: Colorama is one of course! I remember the parade used to seem so huge to me. My family lived across from Center school and we'd always get woke up early every year by all the noise of the bands and floats unloading and getting ready to perform. I loved to see the clowns and horses too. There were many nice cars and tons of floats back then. It was also ok to throw candy to the crowd, and we got a load yearly! As I grew older I got to participate in the parade in various ways for many years. Colorama has always been a time when people who have not been to the Coulee return to see old friends and family. Each year, I see fewer and fewer people returning to say hello to their elementary school buddies at Colorama time. More people are moving out and they never come back. I myself am considering a move to a city to have more opportunities for my own children, but realize I would be trading a standard of living that can't be the same in the city as it is here; where many of my friends and family are. Regardless of all this, we went last year to all the events-flea market, carnival, rodeo, and parade, and we had fun-we always do and we'd miss it if it disappeared one day.

Hopes for community: There are many things around here you just simply cannot do anymore. We used to be able to swim in the pool, skate on the ice, ride our motorcycles at the PUD, the airport, and Barker's Canyon, etc. It's hard to stay positive when opportunities for health, physically fit activities are taken away. It makes a person wonder what they are supposed to be replaced with? Drugs & alcohol, obesity, much of the boredom youth complain about today. We need to gain some of the things back that we have lost around here. We can't make the lake freeze, but we could make a motocross park. We could build a pool if we could come to a consensus about where to put it. We did that with the skate park. Have you ever been with someone just driving back into and around the Coulee for the first time in many years? I have. It's weird to see how drastic it all looks to them. We who live here have lived through it all these years; maybe we don't notice or feel it as much as we should because we are here everyday, but if you ever are driving around with someone who hasn't been back in years, be prepared to hear a lot about how crappy and awfully sad it looks and is around here. Funny thing is-they're right. Sort-of. We have a lot to our credit and we can do a lot to make it better and build some pride in our youth at the same time.

Why I am part of the project: To become more involved in the local community and gain a better perspective of others' thinking and improve education and other opportunities in the area. To try to help improve on some of my complaints above; schools, opportunities; and sense of community.

HORIZONS: Community Leaders Reducing Poverty
Working together to move from poverty to prosperity for all.

Action Meeting Thurs, Dec. 11 We need you!

UPDATE

What:

Multiple Study Circle groups have met. Each group discussed the problem of poverty in our community, identified the assets available here, and then developed priority action ideas.

These are solution ideas that we will now review as group in order to form a plan for action. Five community members attended a fantastic training opportunity in Spokane to help guide us. We are now ready to choose projects to move forward on and form action groups.

JOIN US ! All are welcome!

What: Review our Action Ideas
Move to action.

When: Thursday, December 11th, 5:30 PM - 8:30 PM

Where: Coulee Dam PResbyterian/Community Church
509 Central Drive (the stone church)

Free Child and Adult Care available. Gas money available too!
Please indicate your needs in your RSVP


Let us know you are coming. Please call or email:

Sharp Kids/Mary Schilling at 633-3033 or email: mschilling@gcdsd.org

Free Dinner

HORIZONS: Community Leaders Reducing Poverty

Working together to move from poverty to prosperity for all.

Stories in the Community: Kevin

Who: Kevin Lind

Occupation: Pastor, Coulee Dam Community Church, Presbyterian (USA)

Years in Community: 6 months

Education: Prairie High School, Vancouver, WA 1999; Whitworth College, 2003

Favorite community memory:
I don't have to remember back too far, as a newcomer to the community, but I very much enjoyed the Native American Day celebration the schools held at the middle school fields. It was a great community event celebrating the heritage of many in our community, yet enjoyed by all, students and adults as well. I am grateful for the way the schools bring many different people in our community together on a regular basis.

Hopes for community: I hope that we can have a community that everyone feels like they can belong to instead of many separate communities within our area. I hope that everyone can be proud to be a part of that community and can play a role in its unique character as we form it together.

Why I am part of the project: To work together with others to begin forming this united community, celebrating all the positive gifts this community has to offer and building on those gifts to see our community thrive.

HORIZONS: Community Leaders Reducing Poverty
Working together to move from poverty to prosperity for all.

Stories in the Community: Mary

Who: Mary Schilling

Occupation: Grant writer/administrator

Years in Community: 7

Education: Whitworth College, 1994, Bachelors in Biology

Favorite community memory: Mill Pond Days in Nespelem




Hopes for community: For us to focus on the positive instead of the negative and to be the change that we want to see.

Why I am part of the project: To be a part of the solution.

HORIZONS: Community Leaders Reducing Poverty
Working together to move from poverty to prosperity for all.

Stories in the Community: Rob

Who: Rob Hughes

Occupation: Pharmacist

Years in Community: 11

Education: Eastmont High School 1988, Washington State University 1993

Favorite community memory: Planet Earth Players performances

Hopes for community: Quality Education

Why I am part of the project: Someone asked me

HORIZONS: Community Leaders Reducing Poverty
Working together to move from poverty to prosperity for all.

Stories in the Community: Nate

Who: Nate Piturachsatit

Occupation: 6th grade teacher

Years in community: 20 years

Education: Lake Roosevelt 1996, Whitworth College 2001

Favorite community memory:
I'm going to go with a more recent memory, the Grand Columbian Triathlon. What a cool event to have here in the Coulee, and it was great to see all the people from the area help out to make it possible. There were so many world class athletes here and watching them compete was unbelievable. I hope this is something this community has the chance to be apart of for a while.

Hopes for the community:
...that there would be a greater sense of pride in this community. After living here over a year I have seen so many good things happening, and yet there seems to be this negativity that permeates through all the positives in this community; it destroys the possibilities this place has. There are so many good things happening in this area. We need to move ourselves toward those postive conversations and stay away from the negative.

Why I am a part of this project:
...to give back. As a youth I was always asking myself, "What can this area do for me?" I was selfish. Nothing of value comes about when we are always looking to take from someone or something else. Now I'm asking myself, "What can I do to help make this place better for me and for everyone else?" It's a paradigm shift for me that took some time to complete, but now I know I'm on the right track. There is potential in everyone, and I would like to help bring that out.

HORIZONS: Community Leaders Reducing Poverty
Working together to move from poverty to prosperity for all.

Stories in the Community: Jesse

Who: Jesse Utz

Occupation: Fire Fighter, Business Owner, “Voice of the Raiders.”

Years in Community: 35 years

Education: Lake Roosevelt High School, 1992

Favorite community memory:
When I was a kid, Colorama was a big deal. We wanted to do it all. The Carnival was at on the Middle School Field and seemed a lot bigger than what we have now. The Flea market was on the street in front of the Coulee Dam Post Office and had lots of options, but I can remember always being drawn to the booth that had kid stuff and gag gifts. There was also a beer tent, a street dance, an art show, the rodeo, and a soap box derby. But I remember the parade most of all; it was huge. It seemed like a full two hours with marching bands and floats from every town around our area. It was fun for all, and it seemed that everyone was having fun.

Hopes for community:
That someday soon, that all our leaders and members will unite. We have the potential here to set the bar high and achieve whatever we set our minds to. There are families living among us that struggle on a day to day basis, and we need to help them with a loving hand and teach them how to sustain themselves in our community. We need to love one another no matter the race, sex, or status. We need to promote business, which in turn will provide jobs, stimulate the economy, and attract newcomers. We need to accept change and learn that in this day we can make a difference. We can thrive and be contributors to a healthy, strong community of families, workers, seniors, and youth. We can give hope to all that choose to live in or visit our community. We can no longer ignore the problems in our area; we must work together as a team to accomplish a lighthouse community to be seen by all, to all feel safe, and to cultivate all our dreams to succeed.

Why I am part of the project:
I want to give back, or “Pay it Forward”. I came from a low income family with alcohol and drug problems. I thought when I was a kid that I was destined for the same, and I lived that way for years. But there were people out there that saw potential for me even when I did not. Every youth in our community needs to have hope and dreams that are positive ones; and we need to help them cultivate those dreams. I want to help them do this. But not just Youth, I want help everyone that needs a step or push in the right direction. From poverty to drug addiction, from unemployment to education, from business to our schools, from racism to our seniors. We need to help those in need and I feel this project will do that.

HORIZONS: Community Leaders Reducing Poverty
Working together to move from poverty to prosperity for all.

Stories in the Community: Amanda

Who: Amanda Poch

Occupation: Paraprofessional at Center Elementary and After School program leader for 4th, 5th and 6th grades

Years in Community: Almost 25 years

Education: Lake Roosevelt High School 2002; Washington State University, Hospitality Business Management, 2006; Working towards a Masters in Teaching through Western Governors University.

Favorite community memory: The candle light vigil that was held at Mason City Park after 9/11. It was an eye-opening moment for me as a high school senior to really see the caliber of people we have in our community.

Hopes for community: My hopes are for the people of our community to realize that anything is possible. The only thing stopping change is not believing it can happen.

Why I am part of the project: I am a firm believer that a person should not complain about something unless they are doing something to fix it. I want to see our community reach its potential, so I'm going to work for it.

HORIZONS: Community Leaders Reducing Poverty
Working together to move from poverty to prosperity for all.

Who has community vision?

Leadership Plenty Training

L-R:
Jennelle Kerner, Horizons Coach
Amanda Poch, Jesse Utz, Nate Piturachsatit

Bob Lambert, Muriel Meyer (Colville Community Member), Sheri Edwards




Who has community vision?

Amanda Poch, Jesse Utz, Bob Lambert, and Nate Piturachasatit demonstrated leadership, presentation, and visioning skills while learning about the ten modules of civic change from the Leadership Plenty Training. They learned that "the “plenty” in community leadership comes from recognizing the wealth of capacities that people in the community possess." Their role is to develop this community leadership to mobilize change.

What's so special about these four people?

One thing:

They are ordinary people who stepped forward so that, together, they can do the extraordinary with others like them. They mobilize assets to solve community problems; they believe their community can move forward.

Please read their stories:

Amanda Poch
Bob Lambert
Jesse Utz
Nate Piturachsatit

Will you step forward to move our community forward? Will you add your vision?

Please call or email: 633-3033 Mary Schilling.

HORIZONS: Community Leaders Reducing Poverty
Working together to move from poverty to prosperity for all.

Communities: Moving Forward with People Power

How does a community move forward?

People in the community must step forward in order for the community to move forward.



Where is the community moving?

To a vision! --But whose vision?

That's the goal -- a vision for and from the community.



What's the vision for our community?

In our community, through the Horizons Project, ordinary citizens like you and Amanda, Bob, Jesse, and Nate gather together to share their visions, to create a community vision of prosperity. Through community action, the vision becomes reality.


Who are these citizens?

You!

This project needs everyone's voice and vigor; your involvement begins with a phone call: 633-3303, Mary Schilling. Your involvement can be what you can do: a phone caller, a researcher, a volunteer at events, a planner, etc. Right now, we need ideas; don't you have a few to share for our community? Please join those who have already stepped forward.


Who have already stepped forward?

As many as fifty people have attended various activities so far: initial meeting, Study Circles, Leadership Plenty Training. Please read our previous blogs and view the slideshows of the Tuesday/Thursday Study Circles 1 and 2 and the Leadership Plenty Training.


Please come to the next meeting, December 11th, 5:30-8:30 PM, in the Community Church in Coulee Dam to help begin our action process for our community.

Please step forward and join the journey.

HORIZONS: Community Leaders Reducing Poverty
Working together to move from poverty to prosperity for all.

Leadership Plenty Graduates: Empowered Citizens

At the Leadership Plenty Training, Amanda Poch, Jesse, Utz, and Nate Piturachasatit represented our community to learn the skills we need to create and act on a community vision that we, together, imagine to move our community forward. Their graduation represents the first step in mobilizing our community vision to move our community forward.






How can we move our community forward? Join to help!

HORIZONS: Community Leaders Reducing Poverty
Working together to move from poverty to prosperity for all.
Call 633-3033

An Opportunity for Thanks

From Leadership Plenty

Jesse, Nate, and Amanda thanked Cathy McMorris-Rodgers for her help and guidance in our local school issue.

Congressional aides, state senators and representatives, federal authorities, and school officials had gathered in our local schools on November 12th to tour and talk about the questionable status of our local school facilities. This is indeed one of our local needs as those officials agreed that:

• The district needs new schools.

• School building funding is difficult.

School district board Chair Donna DeWinkler, and Sheila Stalp, deputy director for U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris-Rodgers, who represents Washington’s fifth congressional district in the nation’s capitol, arranged the tour and discussion.

Our HORIZONS Leadership Plenty Team took the opportunity to thank U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris-Rodgers after she spoke at noon on December 3rd to the attendees at the HORIZONS Conference in Spokane at the Washington State University campus.

For more information on the school building issue, see this article in The Star newspaper.

McMorris-Rodgers Recognizes HORIZONS

From Leadership Plenty

Cathy McMorris-Rodgers, Representative for Eastern Washington, spoke to the participants of the Leadership Plenty Training Conference in Spokane.

She acknowledged the excellent work of local communities whose grass-roots organization has been driven by the HORIZONS grant and training.

She recognized the local efforts in communities, such as Northport and Springdale, whose area residents understand that each person holds a capacity for leadership. These community members added their own leadership role and invited more members to share their leadership to solve the needs of each community. Community parks, farmers markets, and community centers were the result of ordinary citizens believing they could make change for the better, thus allowing extraordinary results.

Representative McMorris-Rodgers pointed to the possibilities for growth in Eastern Washington based on what already exists: excellent medical records facilitation and new energy resources, as examples. By building from what we have using the people resources of communities, our prospects for the future will grow. The HORIZONS Project proves this to be true. Click on “Community Mobilization” in the sidebar for recent news of our community to see how our residents have begun the HORIZONS Way of grass-roots solutions to community needs.

Please come to the next meeting, December 11th, 5:30-8:30 PM, in the Community Church in Coulee Dam to help begin our action process for our community.

Public Relations Training: Take Control

From Leadership Plenty

Pamela Roberts of Washington State University, Jefferson County Extension 4-H Youth Development shared her expertise on blogging to the advanced bloggers of the HORIZONS Project. We learned to take control of our shots to create a story and history of our progress to eliminate poverty.

Photo credit: Pamela Roberts, Horizons-PR.

Leadership Plenty

Community members from the Study Circles Sessions have gathered in Spokane for Horizons Project "Leadership Plenty" training sessions to enable success in the grassroots program to reduce poverty.

"LeadershipPlenty® curriculum consists of nine modules that address primary civic skills that enable graduates to confidently identify problems in their communities and implement a plan of action to combat those problems." -- from the Horizons Website.



Participants Jesse, Amanda, and Nate will learn:
Building Partnerships
Moving from Talk to Action
Valuing Evaluation
Communicating for Change.

They will return to guide other leaders in the community to learn the strategies that have proven to move communities from poverty to prosperity. More information is available at the Pew Partnership for Civic Change, including this powerpoint.

Sheri and Bob attend sessions on communications and public relations, of which this blog is a component.

These are ordinary people hoping to work with others for extraordinary change.

Please join us --

Call or Email:
Mary Schilling, Organization Contact
SHARP Kids/Mary Schilling at 633-3033 or mschilling@gcdsd.org

Sheri Edwards, Blogger