South Dakota

First time Farmers Market

Wayne Hopkins of Arlington arranges plants and at his merchant table at the Estelline Farmers Market grand opening. (Photo by Joe O’Sullivan)

 By Joe O’Sullivan, Staff Writer

Published: Saturday, June 21, 2008 12:01 AM CDT

Gathered amongst a bonanza of produce, flowers, knickknacks and gourds, neighbors assembled Friday evening to celebrate and shop at the grand opening of the Estelline Farmers Market. The farmers market was held at Gazebo Park on the corner of Main Street and Route 28 from 4 to 7 p.m.

Eight vendors represented local farmers, artists and residents as tables were laden with alfalfa, tomatoes, eggs, odds-and-ends and even decorative gourds. Buyers and sellers alike munched on celebratory slices of cake and communed with friends. (more…)

I wanted to take some time to highlight some of the recent stories from our communities across the state. There is so much to be learned from other communities and often communities have the same issues they are trying to find solutions to. You know the old saying, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel…here are some examples of great work happening in our Horizons communities:

Murdo: Their newly formed volunteer program is getting started. A great way to help those in your community who aren’t able to do tasks themselves. Keep building that social capital! Read more about it at http://murdo.communityblogs.us/2008/05/29/volunteer-program/  

Philip: Philip is looking at its assets, including the numerous things that all of their social organizations do in the community. An ice cream social will be used to highlight the work done by groups, to encourage new volunteers and to celebrate community spirit. Great idea Philip! Read more at: http://philip.communityblogs.us/2008/06/01/celebration-of-community-spirit/

Sanborn Central: A community wide rummage sale will be held, they got donations of bags from local grocery stores and donations of rummage sale items from the community. Proceeds of the sale go to help people in poverty in their community. Read more at: http://sanborncentral.communityblogs.us/2008/06/08/horizons-rummage-sale/

These are just a few of the great stories shared on the blog in the first part of June. We hope that communities will continue to blog after Horizons is officially done so we can see the great work you are doing in your communities continue.  

It’s been an amazing journey through Horizons II, and we are almost to the finish line! Communities are preparing for the June 30th official end to Horizons and the celebration events planned for late June and July.

Keep sharing your stories and progress on action items on the blogs. Your blog posts can help us tell your story to NWAF and help you earn the full $10,000 reward at the end.

Here’s a photo of the group that attended Northwest Area Foundation’s Grassroots and Groundwork conference in Minneapolis this past week. There were a total of 21 people from South Dakota Horizons who were either staff or community members.

We heard several keynote speakers and chose to attend a variety of break out sessions on poverty reduction and learned how other communities across the nation are doing things in their community. Thanks to Martha for making us take the photo (even though we all moaned and groaned about it) and thanks to Mary from Whitewood for remembering to bring her camera and sharing the photo with us.