Community Stewards Continue to Emerge through Bemidji Leads!

Since the kick-off in October, 2004, Bemidji Leads! has created quite a stir in the Bemidji community and throughout the region.  In Bemidji, people are energized.  New and exciting projects are starting.  And a group of community stewards, led by Jim Bensen, have stepped to the plate to help this community forge ahead.

Originally, the goal of Bemidji Leads! was simple yet bold: Identify Bemidji’s destiny before someone else does.  Bemidji needs to strategically identify where it needs to be in ten years, and then identify how to get there….together.  Bemidji Leads! is about generating excitement, encouraging and nurturing key community efforts, and, most of all, charting the course to a successful future.

One of the great things the HRDC has learned during the past few months is that Bemidji is blessed with an abundance of stewards.  People who not only care, but act.  People who have left the sidelines and have decided to enter the game.

And Bemidji’s stewards are acting.  Community members are leading a charge to develop a $50 million regional events center in Bemidji, positioning the community as the regional center for northern Minnesota.  There are people leading efforts to plant trees throughout the community, expand upon Bemidji’s wonderful outdoor recreation opportunities as well as its trails.  Bemidji stewards are looking at making Bemidji a center-piece learning community.  They are looking at redeveloping downtown for the first time since the early 1980s, finding ways to make it thrive.  And Bemidji stewards are looking at the future, determining how our economy can grow and create opportunities for all.  All total, over 300 people in the Bemidji area are acting in some way within the context of Bemidji Leads! to move Bemidji forward.

What is next for Bemidji Leads!?  Stewards will be focusing on two key areas in the coming months:

• Community Indicator Report - With the financial support of Beltrami County and the Northwest Minnesota Foundation, Bemidji Leads! will lead an effort to engage the Bemidji community in identifying and assessing the measurable indicators of progress of the Bemidji community.  Bemidji Leads! will look at the changes and trends occurring in a variety of community life, from “People and Talent” to “Social Inclusion” and “Collaborative Governance”.  The indicator report will fulfill the following key objectives:

• Measuring progress - The Bemidji area has never developed a definitive source of information and data on an ongoing basis that will allow us to measure progress, trends, and changes.  Without measurable data, progress tends to be measured at a subjective level, leaving room for misinterpretation and significant error.
• Setting the stage for further investigation of opportunities and challenges - The indicator report will not only provide a snap shot of current conditions in the Bemidji area, it will also clearly highlight both challenges and opportunities that need to be looked into further by the community.
• Motivating community dialogue and action - Community indicator reports create dialogue.  They generate buzz in the area and tend to focus the community’s attention.
• Laying the foundation for ongoing, sustained community renewal - Bemidji Leads! has long discussed how to sustain action, civic engagement and change.  One of the ways to accomplish this is to measure progress on a continual basis.

• Shared Vision! - Race relations have historically been a challenging issue facing the Bemidji area.  Surrounded by three Indian reservations (Red Lake, Leech Lake, and White Earth), the Bemidji community includes a sizeable minority population.  Unfortunately, instead of seeing its diversity as a strength, Bemidji has suffered from racial tension, distrust and misunderstanding.

The Bemidji community has come together to collectively address one of its greatest challenges: race relations.  Specifically, the Bemidji Area Race Relations Council has teamed with the stewards of Bemidji Leads! to create and implement a plan of action for race relations.  The goal: to ensure that all Bemidji residents, regardless of race, share equal opportunity to participate in community life.

Bemidji Leads! has created dramatic results, locally and regionally.  With the leadership of a group of tremendous stewards, the future remains very bright for the Bemidji community.

What is a steward?  The Alliance fo Regional Stewardship defines it well:  “Stewards are more than leaders. Stewards are special leaders who cross boundaries, take an integrated approach, and build coalitions for action. They have 360 degree vision, recognizing the interdependencies between the economy, the environment and social equity.  Stewards operate at the center of tough issues, not on the edges. They are risk-takers. They are passionate and energetic.  They arepeople of vision.”

“Park Rapids has always been a special community to those that live here, “says Mark Hewitt, President and owner of Northwoods Bank.  “But it has only been recently that we’re figuring out what we want to look like in the future and how we’re going to bring it about. I am excited about the energy and optimism generated by Progress Park Rapids.”

That enthusiasm is well founded.  After a year of listening carefully to community members, defining a future, and establishing a community agenda for improvement, the Park Rapids community is off and running.  A future vision has been created (see insert), and a bold agenda for the future has been established that includes goals in each area exhibited in the bubble diagram.

• There will be a functioning economic development organization in the PR area by 2006. --Done!
• Park Rapids will have a vibrant, revitalized downtown by 2008. --Study underway!
• By 2007, the community will have an active drug and alcohol task force that will identify and act on the top issues related to drug and alcohol crimes and emergencies. --Task Force formed, now involved in implementation!
• The T.H. 34 corridor and downtown will be a showcase example of what a community can do to provide greenspace and landscaping in a small urban setting. --Funding for plantings allocated, design underway!
• By 2010, the Park Rapids community will have the premiere trail network in northern Minnesota. --City leading park and trail planning process!
• There will be a Park Rapids community fund capitalized at quarter of a million dollars by 2008. --Fund established, fundraising well underway!

This is just a small sample of what is going on.  What is Park Rapids going to do for an encore? Keep checking the Progress Park Rapids website for updates!

For more information about Progress Park Rapids, please contact Cliff Tweedale or Dave Hengel at the HRDC or any of the following stewards: Nancy Carroll, Brian Weuve, Mark Hewitt, Katie Magozzi, Leah Pigatti, or Bill Steen.

Creating a bold vision for the future and a common community agenda, and finding more and better ways to work together is not just important for the larger communities in our Region. In fact, because of resource limitations and increasing competition, it may be even more important for communities like Blackduck.

A number of community leaders (see inset) have committed to help Blackduck define “what it wants to be when it grows up,” and to challenge all parts of the community to pitch in to make it happen.

Blackduck 20/20 has attended over a dozen meetings to inform people of the effort. The initiative has also designed a survey so community members can indicate what is important to them, and how they think the community is doing now. Over 250 surveys have been filled out so far.

What’s next? The community will define the future it wants and develop a common community agenda for getting there over the next several months.  Then the fun begins -- work will be done to invite all sectors of the community to find a role in moving the agenda forward.

For more information, you can contact Cliff Tweedale or Dave Hengel.  Or better yet, try some of these local leaders that are committed to improving Blackduck: Lee Coe, Steve Cochems, Marcia Larson, or Greg Palm.

Steve Cochems

“I am excited about Blackduck 20/20.  It gives community members a chance to participate in thinking about the future, and more important, to help make it happen.”

The Seventh Generation area is a racially and geographically diverse area that encompasses most of two school districts – the Mahnomen Area School District, and the Waubun, Ogema-White Earth (WOW) School District.  It is an area blessed with rich farmland and lakes, but also an area that is challenged by daunting social and economic issues. As in most other communities, the challenges tend to divide the community instead of bringing it together.

As indicated earlier in this section, successful communities are those that can agree on a common, singular future, are smart at devising strategies to accomplish that future, figure out how to build coalitions for action among diverse groups, and sustain the action over a long period of time.

The Seventh Generation Initiative, and the Headwaters RDC staff that are committed to it, are still trying to figure out how to make all that happen.

The start is a reasonable one – if you click here you can find the Seventh Generation web site that lists the community Report Card that was completed, as well as the Destiny Statement and list of ambitious Building Blocks to make that destiny real.  The web site also lists the activities that are now underway on several of those building blocks.

But community stewardship initiatives are not only about accomplishing projects, but also about building community in the best sense of the word.  Complete success comes about when communities figure out, and act upon, the concept put forward by Susan Morse of the Pew Partnership for Civic Change: “The ability to work together comes when citizens realize for themselves that working together is not only better, it’s the only real option for creating change.”  Is the community there yet? Have we figured out how to help them get there? Not by a long shot. But, as the quote states, there is no other choice than to continue to find a way to bring about that sort of change in community culture.

“The ability to work together comes when citizens realize for themselves that working together is not only better, it’s the only real option for creating change.”