Minnesota

Horizons II communities successfully completed the 18-month program and Horizons staff  want to share two documents developed that highlight the many successes the communities accomplished.  The first is a report on activities around the three outcome areas of Horizons - leadership development, poverty reduction, and community/partnership/infrastructure development.  You can access this report by clicking on:  Action on Horizons Outcomes 

The second document highlight the findings from the pre and post test done in the communities during the study circle and LeadershipPlenty components of the program.  You can access this report by going to Community Evaluation Results of Pre and Post Tests

 Amazing work by amazing people that reinforces our belief that Minnesota is the best place to live!

HomeTown YouthForceA COME-BACK/GIVE-BACK APPROACH

One third of families who are working still aren’t making a living wage.  The latest issue of Initiative Quarterly, Broke, delves into poverty in Minnesota.  You can spot the Horizons Program as well on page 8.  Visit www.ifound.org or click here to read more.

You can access Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunities website to learn about national trends, projects, and political activities surrounding poverty.  It provides a glimpse on how everyone around the country is trying to address the impacts of poverty on individuals and communities.  Check it out!

National campaign to Stamp Out Hunger is Saturday, May 10!!  It is the nations largest single-day food drive.  If you’d like to participate, just place bags of non-perishable food next to your mailbox or bring them in to your local post office.  The postal service will take care of delivering them to your local food shelf.

 To learn more go to http://www.helpstampouthunger.com/ 

This approach focuses on learning about and understanding all the assets that are available in a community. Assets can include people, skills, buildings, nature (like parks and rivers), etc. If a community can identify all the assets in the community, those assets can be used to help people in need.

Here are examples of what is happening in some communities:

• a program to help people buy and repair their own cars (assets identified to make this happen included a retired mechanic and an unused car garage)
• starting a “buy local” program or campaign
• pooling financial resources to create a “lending circle” program to help people get credit to start a business of their own (assets identified include people with business start-up experience and people who have ideas and interest in starting a business)

We’ve already seen some of these ideas listed in some community plans in Minnesota and we look forward to adding other ideas to the list!

As always, if you’d like additional information on all the approaches, please log on to Everyday Democracy’s (formerly Study Circle Resource Center) website at

http://www.everyday-democracy.org/en/index.aspx

and click on the poverty link under issues on the right hand side. From there you’ll see the link to the “Thriving Communities: Working Together to Move From Poverty to Prosperity for All” guide.

The Northwest Area Foundation (NWAF) commissioned Lake Research Partners (LRP) to conduct a national tracking survey to explore the public’s perception of poverty in one’s own community, attitudes toward the roles of local elected officials, and ways in which to address the issue. The survey was conducted among 4,000 Americans age 18 and older, from February 8-29, 2008. Eight hundred interviews were conducted nationally, and oversamples of 400 were conducted in each of the following eight states: Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Oregon and Washington. The oversamples were weighted down to reflect their true proportion in the country. The margin of error is +/-3.5 percentage points for national and +/-5.0 points for state results. This is the third survey of its kind, replicating studies NWAF and LRP released in March 2006[1] and April 2007.

There are three documents that cover Minnesota responses:

Results from a National Survey 

A Briefing Paper for Minnesota Policymakers 

Detailed Minnesota Results with Survey Questions 

This approach focuses on bringing people together to find better ways to deal with conflict and face hard issues. Actions that are happening include:

• letter writing, phone calls, and emails to elected officials to request new or different policies to assist people living in poverty
• creating a co-operative buying group to get better prices for purchasing necessary health and food items
• uniting community members to jointly celebrate unique cultural attributes
• instituting programs such as “Circles of Support” (http://www.movethemountain.org/index.cfm?nodeID=9229&audienceID=1), a community-wide approach to assisting families as they move out of poverty

As always, for more information, please go the Everyday Democracy website at http://www.everyday-democracy.org/en/index.aspx

Below is a link to Extension’s Center for Family Development and resources they offer for teaching youth about money.    For example,

Did you know?

• 1 in 5 teens have their own credit card or access to their parents’ card.
• High school seniors’ basic financial literacy is declining.
• 30% of youth report their parents rarely or never discuss saving and investing with them.
• Undergraduates carry an average of three credit cards, and have an average credit card debt of $2,327.
• As little as 10 hours of personal finance education positively affects students’ spending and savings habits.

Find out how you can address these issues at:

http://www.extension.umn.edu/Youth&Money/ 

Here is an inspirational story about on this snowy day:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080325.wbc-flowers0325/BNStory/National/home