Alta, IA

Two community members, Kris Shannon and Terry Pollard, have been selected to represent Alta Horizons progress and be presenters for a workshop at the 2008 Midstates Community and Economic Development Conference to be held on Wednesday, March 19, at the Marina Inn in South Sioux City, Nebraska.

Alta was selected as one of about 15 communities from Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota.

This conference is designed to bring together community and business leaders, and elected officials from the three-state area to share their experiences and learn new ideas for community and rural economic development.

Kris and Terry, members of the Alta Horizons Steering Committee, will lead a breakout session at 12:30p on Leadership, which will discuss community capacity building through leadership development with the Horizon Program in Alta. The other community featured during the breakout session will be Tyndall, S.D.

Several other Alta community members will be attending the conference as well.

Everyone from rural communities is invited and welcome to attend.

Cassie Bishop, a member of the Alta Horizons steering committee, recently met with the director of the United Community Health Center in Storm Lake, to discuss more accessibility options to the clinic for the Alta community. UCHC will be unable to provide an on-site clinic in Alta, but they are in the process of preparing to build a new UCHC west of Storm Lake on Highway 7 towards Alta. There will be continued dialog with UCHC to provide good accessibility to those who need it from the Alta community. Cassie has arranged for a spokesperson for the health center to speak to the Alta Horizons committee at their next monthly meeting to clarify questions raised about who can use the clinic, the process of obtaining access to clinic services, and also to discuss with the committee the transportation accessibility and availability issues that have been raised within the Alta community. UCHC information brochures are going to be placed in ABC (Alta Building Connections) welcome packets being provided by Alta Horizons to new residents within the community.

Recently, Kris Shannon, co-chairperson of the Alta Horizons, visited three community resource centers in nearby Iowa towns, to gain information and ideas about the on-going effort to form a resource center for the Alta community. Although none of the three centers visited are exactly something we need in Alta, in the December Alta Horizons meeting at city hall, Kris shared several ideas that were gleaned from the visits. Some of the ideas received included: ways for community outreach and increasing awareness of services/needs within the community, “incentive programs” that encourage attendance at parenting classes (with points being earned toward receiving a necessity such as baby bed, diapers, car seat, etc.), reducing barriers such as transportation and consolidating agency locations to facilitate access to a variety of services, and also input regarding the the concept of expecting something in return from a service recipient back to the community, such as helping another person, taking a class, etc.

The Alta Horizons committee continues its discussion and dialog on ways a community resource center can become a viable part of the Alta community.