Silver Valley, ID

Since early fall 2006,  the people of the Silver Valley have been hard at work having been giving the opportunity to join the Horizons program and make some changes here in our community. I feel that we have come a long way, however we still have a ways to go. A mountain doesn’t just spring up over night you know!!! So to keep this short, sweet, and to the point, here are our reflections of how we have done over the past year and a half.

1. What kind of concrete steps have been taken by our community to address poverty?

Our community had become more inclusive because we have all made an intentional and concerted effort to make sure that all demographics, socio-economic groups and entities from our community have been included. Through word of mouth, advertisements, and press releases, we made this initiative available to all people in our community. We have partnered with city municipalities, county workers and representatives, schools, youth, elderly, low-income, police, fire district, other social service providers, businesses and publicly elected officials. These partnerships have made a difference in our community because not only have we been able to communicate on the strengths and weaknesses of our community but also on our collective vision and goals. We believe that we have been very intentional about including everyone, we just wish that people would be more regularly and consistently involved. People tend to drift in and out of our initiative.

2. How has our community leadership expanded?

More people, especially people who have never had an opportunity before, are participating in leadership now in our community. We have more people representing more sectors or parts of the community, especially youth, and low-income. Our community leadership reflects the community’s demographics but again the level of commitment waxes and wanes.

3. In what ways is our community operating or working differently?

Study Circle, Leadership Plenty, the Vision Rally, the Vision Launch and Action Teams are all new ways that people are contributing to our community. Working with different entities on a community center, job training, and a community resource guide have empowered our community to share ideas and resources. Interacting with other contiguous Horizons groups has enabled us to expand our brainstorming on a more global level.

4. What structures have been changed (or we are working on changing) that will enable our community to address poverty in the long term?

Education, communication, collective brainstorming, partnered visioning and action teams would all be new paradigms as to how we will be addressing poverty in the long term. The templates, the training and the support from U of I and NWAF have created a foundation for this ongoing work. Again, more consistent and regular partners would be the biggest boon for our initiative.

5. What is our community’s plan for maintaining a strong community leadership system?

Our plan is to use all that we have learned from our Study Circles, Leadership Plenty, the Vision Rally, the Vision Launch and our Action Teams to maintain a strong community leadership system. Continued public relations, relationship building, partnering and regular meetings will ensure that this is accomplished for us.

6. How will our community make decisions about seeking further resources to support our plans?

Partnering with other community groups, such as the American Legion (community center group), the Economic Development Corporation (job training) and many other social service providers (community resource guide) has created a sybergistic effect for our community’s resources. This initiative will be a springboard for us to secure other resources from within and outside of our community.

So in closing I think that you can get an idea of how much hard work we have put into this and how much hard work is to come. Like I said before, a mountain just doesn’t spring up over night, and so therefore change takes time but we will keep pushing forward. Wish us the best of luck and keep your fingers crossed for us!!!

“Sometimes the situation is only a problem because it is looked at in a certain way. Looked at in another way, the right course of action may be so obvious that the problem no longer exists.” Edward de Bono

Well what to say?! The local community members that make up the Resource Committee have been hard at work for quite some time. Their goal is to make sure that all of the communitie’s resources are up to date and that the community is awareof them. Hence the name of the committee!! They meet usually once a month and faces at the table vary depending on if new agencies have come into the community or who can make it and who can’t because of busy work schedules.

Well full speed ahead though for this little group when Horizons came in to the picture for the Silver Valley!! Not only because they had some backup now but one of our communites action ideas was a Resource Guide of some sort. Now they are close to completing their first edition of their resource guide, which will be in a magazine type form and will be free to everybody. The idea is to make sure there are several copies at places like doctor’s offices, other businesses, local service agencies in the community etc.

So long story short, they are almost there and wish them luck!!

Shannon Dancer was recently sworn in as a Vista Volunteer fall of 2007. For those of us who may not have heard of Vista, it is a national service program dedicated to helping fight poverty in the US. Shannon’s role will be improving and supporting family literacy through volunteerism and community involvement. One of her goals is to provide additional time and support for student learning by utilizing and sustaining volunteers in the school.

Shannon says, “I want the community to realize that they are welcome and invited into the schools and to create those opportunities for parents and volunteers to help if they have the time.”

To reach Shannon at Silver Hills Elementary School in Osburn with any questions, please call 208-556-1556.