South Dakota

Here’s a potential grant opportunity for communities working on or thinking about creating a community garden…

Applications are being accepted from Fiskars on the following criteria: Gardens and/or gardening projects geared toward community involvement, neighborhood beautification, sustainable agriculture and/or horticultural education are eligible. Community garden groups, as well as schools, youth groups, community centers, camps, clubs, treatment facilities are all encouraged to apply. Only group applications will be considered; single individuals are not eligible for a Project Orange Thumb^SM grant.

Find the application on-line at http://projectorangethumb.com/pot/. Application materials are due by February 17, 2009.

Horizons 3 communities will participate in blog trainings held across the state in January. Here are the locations and additional information for communities:

• January 5 - Corona
• January 6 -Mitchell
• January 7 - Rapid City

Click here for the training flyer with specific details.

There is so much to be learned from other communities who have participated in Horizons. As much as we have learned and accomplished in South Dakota, the same has been happening in the other states involved in the project. Here is a link to the North Dakota group’s version of the tabloid, celebrating the successful completion of Horizons II in North Dakota. Great reading if you have some time.

North Dakota Horizons II

Celebrating 21 Horizons II Successes is a new publication from the SDSU Cooperative Extension Service. This 8 page tabloid highlights the many successes documented by the 21 communities across South Dakota that recently completed the Horizons II project.

To read more about the great things happening in South Dakota communities click here.

I learn so much by attending our Horizons monthly meetings…for instance last night in Estelline I learned about Chicken Tractors, yes I said chicken tractors. One of the educational activites that Estelline has offered in their community is on the topic of Permaculture (permanent agriculture). One of the concepts they talked about using for their planned community garden was a chicken tractor.

It’s a simple, portable cage that you can move around the yard. The chickens eat the bugs and the weeds, and leave behind some “fertilizer.” Then you move them on to the next spot in the yard. Want to build your own chicken tractor? Click the link below for an example. I’m going to stick that little piece of information in my brain, just in case one day someone asks me, “do you know anything about chicken tractors, and I can say yep, I sure do!”

How to Build a Chicken Tractor

Horizons project staff will host three seminars about welcoming an aging population to communities. The seminars begin at 6:30 p.m. with a supper and continue with remarks from three speakers. To register call Debbie Bortnem, (605) 688-6191, before April 21. The seminar dates and locations are:

* April 23, Mitchell Technical Institute Technology Center, Room 111, Mitchell

* April 24, Whitewood Senior Citizens’ Center, Whitewood

* April 28, The Galley Restaurant, Webster

Click here for a copy of the flyer.

To all of our community bloggers, one way we have been trying to capture the changes and progess made in your community is by asking you and others in your community to answer questions in the 12 categories defined by NWAF. Just today I sent our main community contacts the final two questions.

If you are an Administrator, you can check to see how many posts you have per category in the Dashboard. Just go to Manage>Posts> and click the drop down menu under the “Category” heading as seen in the example below. This will help you to see if you have any categories that may need a little “beefing up”. Questions, let Cheryl know by leaving a comment here or send me an e-mail.

Tyndall will be holding a Policy Forum on the topic Poverty on Wednesday, April 16th. Click here for a poster with information on attending: policyforumtyndall.doc

The event is free and open to the public. Horizons community members can also have their travel to attend this event reimbursed.

Mike and Trevor at the Rural Life Census Data Center at SDSU have been working on a new publication about community development. They have given us some statistics about the regional market size needed to suport local business development and retention.

Interesting reading and good information for your community as you make decisions about economic development.  Click the graphic to follow the link to the SDSU Coomunity Innovation & Leadership publications page.

Visit their website at http://sdrurallife.sdstate.edu/ for more information.

Kari Fruechte shared this resource list from the recent Housing Seminar. If your community was not able to attend, this might be a helpful place to start…

 Affordable Housing Agency List

Here’s some information about grants available to communities from the Wellmark Foundation…

We are writing to share our 2008 Request for Proposals (RFP) for your review.  Please also feel free to contact us directly to discuss any project ideas you might like to advance through these funding opportunities. Our grant support will seek to support projects in childhood obesity prevention and community-based wellness and prevention.

There are several significant changes to the application process the RFP highlights around the introduction of a Letter of Interest, the ability to seek funding support for up to two-year project periods, and enhanced guidance around project budgeting.  We will be hosting an applicant teleconference on March 5th to further discuss these changes.  Call-in information is also highlighted within the RFP.  Please consider sharing this RFP with others throughout Iowa and South Dakota that you think might be interested or well positioned to seek funding support.
 
Thank you for your time and consideration.  Your assistance in sharing our funding opportunity is greatly appreciated.  

Here is the link to the Grant RFP. Letters of interest are due April 2, 2008 and August 21, 2008.

Thanks to Dan Oedekoven, Horizons Community Coordinator for passing along the information!

Carolyn Hendricks shared this with us, it is a grant opportunity from the Department of Agriculture for communities that are looking to plant trees. See the link here:

Challenge Grant

 Thanks to Carolyn for passing on this information to the rest of us!

Communities can take advantage of the Regional Seminars being offered by SDSU Extension and the Horizons project. The first of these meetings was held in Mitchell on January 28th. Seminar #1 focused on Regional Collaborations & Community Foundations. Pictured here are some of the speakers for the evening, from the Horizons I project, Sr. Pegge Boehm, Sr. Darlene Gutenkauf and Margaret Lindskov along with Kari and Karla from SDSU. The other photo is South Dakota Community Foundation’s Noel Hamiel with Kari and Karla. Don’t forget the other upcoming seminars:

Seminar 2 - Economic Development/Entrepreneurial Support
Thurs. Feb. 7 – 4-H Building, Forestburg
Tue. Feb. 12 – Wall Community Center
Thur. Feb. 28 – Tripp Fire Hall
Thur. Mar. 6 – The Galley, Webster
Thur. Mar. 6 – TJ’s Café, Newell

Seminar 3 - Affordable Housing
Tue. Feb. 19 – Howard Legion Hall
Mon. Feb. 25 – Jiggers Restaurant, Kadoka

I’m not sure if anyone noticed or not, but the link to Kari’s Friday Findings had been broken for a while. But it is back again and has all the current Friday Findings from Kari. Lots of good info, and opportunities for communities.

Many of our communities are adding more new users, and trying to manage the blogs. We really appreciate the work and commitment that many of you are giving to your community. I have been responding to individual troubleshooting, and am always willing to do so. But we want to help you make this a positive experience for your communities, so you need to tell us what you need from us. We’d love some feedback, suggestions, requests for training etc. from your communities about the blogs. So if you have a suggestion, please leave a comment here, or pass it on to your Community Coordinator. Thanks for all you do for your community!

Here’s a question from the bloggers in Murdo…

Does your community have a Chamber of Commerce?  Murdo bloggers are looking for suggestions on how to get current members to attend and get more involved in the monthly meetings.  We have been discussing this situation on our blog and would like other Horizon communities to share their ideas with us either here on the South Dakota site or on the Murdo blog site.  As Dan O. would say…..”Two heads are not enough!”   :-)

Leave a comment here, or go to the Murdo post on this topic at Chamber Meetings-Why Don’t Members Attend?

Some of our communities had the idea of creating farmers markets, here’s a good opportunity to learn something new…

Farmers market workshop set for Feb. 2

BROOKINGS, S.D. – The South Dakota Cooperative Extension Service will host a farmers market workshop Feb. 2.

The training session will be 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the Northern Plains Biostress Laboratory on the campus of South Dakota State University, Brookings. (more…)