Murdo, SD

I was not aware of this site until I saw it posted on the SD Horizon home page blog, so I put a link to the directory here on the Murdo blog to share with you all. 

It is a searchable database of grants available in our area, and nationwide. The database is managed by the South Dakota State Library. If looking at finding grants, you can search by specific grants, fields of interest, keywords or specific grantor. Click on the underlined words to follow the link to the website. 

Once at the site, I clicked on the “List/Search by Name” and on that page I clicked on “All Foundations/Grantmakers to start searching alphabetically for grants. 

(Information below copied from Kari’s Friday Findings)

Productive Meetings!

It’s a good week when I can say I’ve been to at least two very productive meetings for Horizons communities.  The photos above show a room full of community and resource people invited by Murdo Horizons family recreation committee to come together to discuss possibilities for developing the North Dam area.  All the right resource people were there!  We heard ideas and suggestions from DENR, GF&P, Central SD Enhancement District, NRCS, and the City of Murdo.  Reps also attended from RC&D, the city golf course and the bass fishermen.  Ideas abounded, many things were learned, and an outline of a plan began to take shape.  It felt so good to be part of such an organized, enthused group that is really ready to move into ACTION!  Best of luck to Murdo on this large project!

  (Picture of one of our benches decorated for Spring/Easter)

I would not have believed it if I had not seen it with my own eyes!!  

Today, March 20th is the first day of SPRING!!  It is hard to believe that Spring is really here.  Today the sky is gray and it is a bit foggy but the calendar says Springs begins today!!  It is amazing that Easter is this Sunday!!!!  Tonight is Maundy Thursday service, tomorrow is Good Friday service and Sunday is Easter service! 

I just hope that the Easter Bunny   doesn’t freeze his tail off or that the kids get snow in their Easter baskets!!  lol  :-) 

                                            

Here are the March questions emailed to me from Cheryl J.   :-)

Hello Community Bloggers,

Thanks for your continued time and effort in volunteering to do this in your communities. Here are the monthly questions we would like you to address to meet the minimum requirements of the community blogging:

*******Please answer these questions by including it in your blogs for March: *******

Please choose one or two questions in EACH category to address on your blog:

4. Sustaining action and creating structural change around poverty

What structures have been changed that will enable your community to address poverty in the long-term?

 will you monitor and evaluate your community’s progress in reducing poverty?

What community resources will be needed to sustain the community plan to reduce poverty? 

What additional resources would make a difference in your community’s work to reduce poverty?

11. Taking action on community

In what ways is your community operating or working differently?

In what new or expanded ways are people contributing to your community?

How are low income involved?

What structures have been created or changed that will help your community?

What new partnerships have been created and what difference have they made for your community?

Have you learned anything about how nearby communities like yours are taking action to reduce poverty?  Do you see any opportunities to exchange information or combine efforts in this work?

Please share this with other bloggers in your community. Thanks!

A meeting was held on Tuesday February 26th starting at 6:00 p.m. (supper provided) at the city office.  Kari F. along with four Horizon members met to report on the goals that were presented at our celebration & presentation meeting on January 15th.

Kelcy shared information on the housing goal.  Ruth discussed the economic development things that have been done so far.  Michele reported the status of the volunteer program.  Ray shared a lot of information about the North Dam project that he is leading.  There will be a meeting soon with several entities to discuss the things that are being looked at for the North Dam project.  There was no one there to report on the “Welcome U to Murdo” project at the meeting. 

Overall, it was a good meeting and we are hoping that our next monthly meeting on March 25th will see each of the goals showing even more progress.

Horizons project to host marketing seminars in three towns

BROOKINGS, S.D. ­ The SDSU Horizons project will host marketing seminars in Armour, Philip, and Conde.

Each event begins at 5:30 p.m. with supper. The seminars will be held from 6 to 9:15 p.m. The dates and locations include March 25, Blue Moon Lounge, 708 Second St., Armour; March 26, 73 Lounge, 207 E. Oak St., Philip; March 27, Conde Community Center, 125 Broadway St., S.E., Conde.

The events are free and open to the public and will focus on “Marketing Your Area” topics. Call Kari Fruechte at (605) 688-4946 to register for the supper, or e-mail her at Fruechte.Kari@ces.sdstate.edu.

Milan Wall, co-director of the Heartland Center for Leadership Development, will be the featured speaker at each event. Wall is a nationally recognized management and communications expert. He will help participants develop strategies for marketing their areas to future residents and businesses.

The Northwest Area Foundation in St. Paul funds the Horizons project. It is a 20-month grant project aimed at reducing poverty and building leadership in rural communities. The South Dakota Cooperative Extension Service has organized and facilitated the project.

At times it looked more like a circus show, with bodies flying all over
the place, but the entertainment provided Saturday evening was well worth
the effort. The Murdo Lions Club took on the elementary and junior high boys basketball teams in a fund raiser for Dacey Bryan and her family.
    In an old-fashioned type evening of entertainment, the crowd on hand
enjoyed the antics of the “elder” ball players, many of which hadn’t played
basketball since their school days.

    The players for each team were introduced, each with a nick name. 
    Fifth graders
Connor “Catch me if you can” Venard; Dylan ‘The Jet” Kinsley; Cody “The
Hammer” Hight; Cody “The Miracle” Manke.
    Sixth graders
Jackson “The Show” Volmer; Chad “Chadder Box” Johnson; Skyler “Thunder”Miller; Clayton “Get­R­Done” Evans.
    Seventh graders
Philip “Welcome to the Gun Show” Mathews; Gus “Lord of the Lane” Volmer; Wyatt “The Ice Man” Hespe; Wyatt “Chairman of the Boards” Walker; Josh “D­Train” Daum; Kyle “The Bounty Hunter Manke;
    Eighth grader
Nick ‘The Beast” Boyle
    Freshmen
    Duane “The Real Deal” Parsley; and Matthew “M­Fly Miller.
    Coyote Coaches
Mike “Big Daddy” Hunt and Scott “The Big Cheese” Mathews.
    Lions Club players
Dennis “I need a sub Moore; Cowboy Kelly “Big Country” Kinsley; David “The
Magic … is gone” Geisler; Chris “I need a medic” Iversen; Kit “Can’t we just
play half court? Talich; Pastor Ray ³”Livin’ on a Prayer” Greenseth; Tim
“Mrs. Butterworth Hochhalter; Chad “The Rad” Whitney; Bruce “Twinkle Toes”Venard; Brian “Big Money” O’Reilly.
    The referees were introduced as the three blind mice. They were Carl
Moore, Kevin Moore and Keith Hespe.
    There were a few hijinks between the teams, as shorts were tugged down,
holding seemed to be a popular defensive tactic, and hook shots and baseball style passes made up the offensive strategy for the Lions Club team.
    The elementary/junior high team was helped out by freshmen Matthew
Miller and Duane Parsley. Dacey threw up the ball to start the game,
however, her toss landed right in the hands of Miller, who wasn’t expecting
it, and ended up giving the ball to the Lions to start the game. The game
was close throughout as the Lions took an early lead, but then relinquished
it when they started running out of gas and had to go to their bench. The
kids took advantage of the substitutions and clawed their way back into the
game, even taking the lead several times.
    During a well­-deserved rest at halftime, a game of bingo was held with
six winners being sought. Each winner received a T­-shirt for a prize.
    The second half was much like the first. Both teams were making some
adjustments and caused lots of excitement with wild shots and daring passes.  Late in the fourth quarter the Lions had once again built up a lead, but the kids fought their way back tying the game at 55-­55. The Lions team tried to go for the last shot but missed, and the kids worked a fast break, however, Philip Mathews was fouled before he could get a shot off. With 1.4 seconds on the clock Mathews swished both of his free throws to give the kids the win 57­-55!!
    The proceeds from the free­will donations and the bingo game will go to
the Dacey Bryan family. Dacey was diagnosed with Leukemia last fall and has been going though treatments in Sioux Falls. She is able to attend school again at this time but still needs to be monitored.

This is the time of year when people start thinking about getting their yard  and property ready for the grass to grow and the flowers to bloom. Remember that the city of Murdo doesn’t assess a fee for city residents to use the landfill. There is already a charge on your water bill for that purpose, so don’t let the thought of having to pay more keep you from taking things out there. Also remember there are some things that can’t be dumped out there. Grass clippings are one of the big things that can’t be taken out there. They are supposed to be taken to the grass site on the south side of the Park Dam.

 Another thing to remember is that the City of Murdo will also help residents with some of their clean up efforts. If you have something that needs hauled off, give them a call at 669-2272 to see what they can help you with.

 Our efforts at community clean up were great two years ago for the centennial, lets keep it going!!!

Here are some of the pictures that were taken during the affordable housing seminar in Kadoka on February 25, 2008.  Overall, we received a lot of very useful information and are anxious to start sharing that information with others in the Murdo Area. 

In this video below, we were split into small groups and given a zip-lock bag with blue cardboard pieces and tape and instructed to work together and build a cardboard house.  It was definitely a learning tool as it did show us that we needed to work TOGETHER to build the cardboard house.