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The following are notes
from the 4th
Community Meeting held last week. PLEASE read through to the end where
you will
see our action steps for the next meeting:
·
About 40 people attended
the 4th community meeting. As each person walked in, they
received
a zip-lock bag with an ingredient of either flour, sugar or baking
powder and
one person received a full container of shortening. They were
given
instructions to figure out with the group, what the ingredients were
for and
how to make it. Tables with information from various community
programs were
set-up for people to look at through-out the evening. On a long
bulletin
board, a large number of the programs in our area were posted for
everyone to
see all of the many good programs that are already happening. One
of the cards
read “Beginning of the Next 30 years.” Another section of the
board had solutions and strategies posted from people’s ideas at
previous
meetings. The last section of the board showed how the Positive
Alternatives
Coalition came about, and how it is connected to current programs now.
·
Dennis Lipp, Director of
Camp Jorn, welcomed everyone to the meeting after a time of eating and
talking. Then Bob Kovar introduced Craig Kerr. Craig asked
if anyone had
figured out what the ingredients were for. Fry Bread! Craig
talked about how
each person brings their personal ingredient to the table, and that we
might each
have our own recipe for making the same thing, but we need each other
to come
together, get our hands dirty and create.
·
Everyone brought their
ingredients over to the kitchen where Mary Mitchell from Lac du
Flambeau taught
how to make fry bread, and some people got to help make it. Other
people used
the time to look at the programs on display, read over the board up
front, or
to connect with others who were at the meeting. Once the bread
was made, Bob
asked the group if anything was still missing. Ernie then came forward
and gave
a blessing for the bread in Ojibwe. He explained that each of us had
brought
their individual ingredient to the kitchen, which is the most important
part.
Everyone brings a strength that they were born with. He then
talked about how
fry bread is more than the ingredients it is the people who get
involved with
it. This was the first opportunity for this group to interact
without
specifically talking about the issues or solutions. The missing part to
making
the fry bread was the blessing and we may have missed it if we didn’t
honor everyone’s traditions and ways in the room. Bob explained that
the
issues in the community are the same way-we need to listen to each
others
perspectives and give voices to all if we are to find real
solutions.
·
Bob provided an
explanation of PAC and ILI and how the PAC
coalition was formed and the funding streams that help us continue our
work.
He talked about the importance of building and establishing
relationships and
trust. He explained the steps and process of the Strategic
Prevention
Framework-a process that is the foundation for all new prevention
grants in the
funding pipeline. The PAC goal is to have programs that will come and
grow, not
just come and go. That goal is reached by pooling and leveraging
our resources
and getting to know one another. Bob asked the group to look at
the great
spectrum of programs and resources available to our children and
families and
asked how with even all of the programs there are still youth who fall
through
the cracks. There are so many programs and issues, that it is
hard to know
where to start. Bob suggested a community prevention “triage”,
where we identify our greatest need and start there. We were
coming together
tonight to find out what is missing in our efforts, like the blessing
for the
fry bread. None of us can find the solution on our own. Bob
said that despite
the complexity, he has a lot of hope because of the commitment in and
expertise
in the room and in our community to find what is missing so we can
better help
our children and families.
·
The floor was opened for
anyone to voice questions or thoughts.
·
Nick Hockings: I see two
common denominators that pull everything together up on the
board. 1.
Everything is made up by
people.
2. Self-esteem is what makes all
people function well. There are many ways to build
self-esteem. Some students
view school as boring, so how do we get them involved? We need to
ask them what they want instead of telling them what they want.
We need to find
out what they see as important and then work towards that goal.
·
Chips Paulsen asked Bob to
read some of the solutions up on the board because this was the first
meeting
he had been able to attend.
·
Jon Berg: The list on the
board is overwhelming. Suggested focusing on 2-3 areas. One group
of people
can focus on each thing. We can work on a few issues at a time,
and then move
onto others little by little.
·
Larry Ouimette: recommended
putting similar things on the board together, categorize, prioritize,
and start
accomplishing things.
·
Bryan:
communication is key. We need to invest time to make others
realize that there
are problems, so that there are more hands to help. There is more
than one
answer to the issue. Need to acknowledge the issues.
·
There are themes.
Recognize differences. Focus on one thing. Is it possible
to commit to three
things? To be a whole, free and integrated community. Need
to know how to get
along together. Need an overarching vision that everyone can buy
into and put
into practice wherever they are.
·
Bob: likes the idea of
focusing on the high school. He prefers being grassroots because
of the energy
of those involved. We can’t depend too much on formal
institutions; they
are too overwhelmed with caseloads and bureaucracy. Building
relationships
changes lives. Volunteers are very important.
·
Carol: suggests following
the idea of Earth Day. It started out grassroots. The basic
model is for
everyone to think of ways that they can help the community.
Suggested having
2008 being our year to focus on community. There can be large
group projects
going on, as well as small projects that involved a few people.
All are
involved in doing something to help build community. Looking
ahead to the next
30 years requires respect, support and valuing diversity.
Everyone needs to be
involved and exploring what it means to be in community together.
Share
ideas. Celebrate diversity.
·
Charlotte Hockings: Can
we use the grant money for projects?
·
Bob: yes, if we develop a
prevention plan for our community.
·
Bryan:
Project for the schools. Each class at LUHS (or 8th grade class
in
the feeder schools or both) could have a presentation, taking pride in
their
community and in who they are
·
Parent: has 7 kids, and
talked about how important it was to them while growing up for him to
be
involved. He asked, ‘what are we involved in?’ What kind of
involvement are we currently getting from parents? Part of the
challenge is
communication, it is difficult in this area.
·
Bob: It is difficult to
communicate in our area- one way to communicate could be thru a
website. Too
often we learn about opportunities to participate after the fact.
There is a
desire to be involved but some people don’t know who to get
connected.
More parents would be involved if they knew what was going on. He
suggested a
community fair for parents to learn about what exists in our
area. Need to
develop more opportunities to share stories of what is going on already
and to
get to know one another and continue communicating.
·
Ernie: he stepped in to
change the pace of the meeting. Everyone had 3 groups to choose
from. They
could continue helping to make fry bread, join the tractor group with
Matt, or
the butterfly group with Alice.
The tractor and butterfly group sat in circles to talk about ideas that
everyone had, and what they thought we should take for our next
step. Once the
groups had talked on their own for a while, we took a break to enjoy
the fresh
fry bread.
·
The small groups joined
back together to share the ideas that had been talked about.
Ernie went back
and forth between the two groups, and Carol recorded them up on the
board.
Ernie explained about the differences between right and left brain and
how they
play into the groups that people chose to be in. He explained the
7
generations.
·
Bryan:
asked if it was possible to have a central meeting location for all of
the
meetings.
·
Suggestion to post next
meeting in the Lakeland
times.
·
Tchiidaaban (Tractor)
Group:
1.
Have 3 sub-committees to
set goals for those interested in parents, students and the community.
2.
Create
an action plan and vision statement
3.
Have
3 focus areas to kick-off the event
·
Memengwe (Butterflies)
Group:
1.
Brainstorm ways to get
parents more involved. Help burnt out parents find time.
High school communication
of Parent meetings could be improved.
2.
Too
many Lac du Flambeau students are not graduating.
3.
(Identity
where we belong)
4.
Make
sense of and integrate resources. Make resources more readily
available
(through a website?)
5.
Bridging
the Gap diversity model, Cam Martin’s proposal
6.
Students
et al involved in a community project
7.
Community
Wide Prevention Program…..?
8.
Youth
Voice is missing
9.
Get
this group behind another person to run for LUHS school board.
·
Carol: each of us needs to
answer this question, what are we trying to build or create?
·
“I
will…” & “We will…” statements for the next
meeting
1.
I will bring LUHS students
2.
I
will bring grade school students
3.
We
will break into 3 sub-committees at the next meeting to focus on
parents,
students and community
4.
We
will try to come up with a vision statement
5.
We
will have students come with something to start the next meeting
6.
We
will ask the students what they want
7.
I
will bring someone new with me to the next meeting (everyone was
challenged to
complete this statement).
·
We will have a potluck at
the next meeting
·
Charlotte
invited everyone to have the meeting at an upcoming HOPE event on June
8th
at the Powwow grounds.
·
It was suggested to have
the next meeting on the same evening (June 8) but we have decided that
we
should all just attend the HOPE event that evening and have our next
community
meeting possibly the following week in LdF but we may move it up in
order to
have LUHS staff attend to help with our assessment tools (see below).
NEXT Steps:
The following are the
action steps we will
take for the next meeting:
1.
We will organize the
solutions and strategies into groups and try and correlate them with
the
programs we had listed-make it less overwhelming to look at.
2.
We
will prepare for the group to participate in two Department of Public
Instruction tools that will specifically focus on issues at LUHS and
community:
First is the AODA Assessment Tool and the second is the Violence
Assessment
Tool. These are tools developed by DPI to help communities assess their
strengths and weaknesses in these areas. We will be piloting the
Violence Tool
for DPI as it is new and Bob volunteered us at a recent meeting in
Madison. School and
community participants must cooperatively participate in these
assessments- we
will be seeking school folks to help us out with this.
3.
After
we complete these assessments, we will develop our vision and mission
statements, strategic plan and objectives.
4.
We
will develop a Position Paper that we will present to the LUHS school
board
that will highlight our recommendations on the most critical needs we
identify.
Bob
Kovar, Project
Director
Intercultural Leadership
Initiative
Positive Alternatives
Coalition
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