Harlem, Montana

Action Forum January 18, 2009

At Harlem High School on January 18, at 2:00 p.m. the Action Forum was held. To start the event each study circle met for 10 to 15 minutes, followed by a pizza dinner.


Kellie Rasmussen welcomed the group, and thanked Rod Becker, Sondra Ashton, Nancy Coleman, Tim Guardipee, and Helen Schroder for being facilitators. Each group made their presentations.


Group 1 was the Harlem Civic group, and was facilitated by Kellie Rasmussen and Tim Guardipee. Their main goal was to achieve a 501 3c tax exempt status. This would allow them to apply for grants for money to do civic projects. Northwestern Energy and Albertsons both offer small grants that they had approached the civic group about trying to obtain in the past, but they require that the recipient have a 501 3c status. The second goal was to develop a community web site, to advertise civic projects and to promote the community. The third thing they wanted to focus on was housing. Some nicer homes would draw more population to the community. A place for teachers, or professionals at Ft. Belknap to live. The fourth goal was to create a relationship with the school. The communities working with the school to simulate job interviews manage money, phone etiquette, etc. Tie the youth to the community.


Group 2 was facilitated by Rod Becker and Sondra Ashton. Their main objective was to develop a community website to Promote Hunting, local history, and Ft. Belknap and its activities. Another use for this site would be a job share or ride share listing on this webpage. It also could be utilized to list senior citizens activities or maybe to list classified ads on the page to make money to run the website. The second goal was to publish list of senior citizen grants or other programs available for seniors. The website could be used to utilize this. Habitat for Humanity’s homes was also discussed. It could also tie back into the webpage as these could be listed there. The third objective was business development. Things such as the theatre, motel, and bed and breakfast could be listed on the webpage also. The fourth goal was to do something with the empty buildings and vacant lots around town. Child care, farmers market, bed & breakfast etc., could possibly fill some of the empty lots or buildings around town. Their fifth and final objective was a youth mentoring program. Things like the city council and student council could observe how each other run. Church youth groups could be utilized in the mentoring program. The biggest benefit would be the youth taking pride in being part of the community.


Group 3 was facilitated by Kellie Rasmussen and Helen Schroder and the presentation was made by Dixie Schroder. They focused on some of the negative aspects of the community including section 8 housing, gangs, no police protection, alcohol/drug abuse, and regular bomb and gun threats. They also had positive aspects such as community wide events, the numerous clubs and organizations (Civic Assn, Ministerial Assoc., Domestic Engineers, Weight Watchers, 4-H, FFA, Busy XX, and the 7 churches in town) personal pride in community, and the want and desire to help others. They wanted to start a community newspaper to raise awareness in Harlem and let people know what’s going on in town. It would give the community their identity back. They felt that it would help to state the opinions on decisions affecting the town, and help keep people in touch and informed. They also felt it would show outsiders of our community that our bad image is false.


Group 4 was facilitated by Nancy Coleman which consisted of 13 students from the High school. They want to create more jobs for students and young adults, and recommended fixing up the movie theatre and replacing the projector were some ideas, and also to look into opening a Café/Teen center. They also suggested organizing youth groups to help cleaning up the community (painting a mural on a building was suggested), and would like to have the student council be involved with the city council.


After all the presentations were complete, everyone present was issued 3 colored dots. These dots were to be used to vote on the 3 ideas each person wanted to see happen. If different group’s ideas mirror each other, they would be consolidated. The next step after the Action Forum is the Leadership Plenty program. It will foster the gap between Study Circles and the Leadership Plenty. A minimum number 10-15 people are needed with a commitment of about 30 hours. It was discussed and the program will consist of 3 hour blocks of time beginning on February 8 at 2 p.m. at the senior center activity room.


The website www.horizonsmt.org will list all activities of this group, and the other groups around the state.


The group will receive $18,000 to use as funding for the ideas that will be decided upon in the action forum. This money can be used as down payments, or as seed money.


Mary John Taylor and Sondra Ashton are the facilitators for the Leadership Plenty portion of the grant.


After the votes were tallied the results were:

1. Business Development (focus on a theatre and youth center) 22 votes. It was suggested that maybe a cooperative could be formed to purchase the theatre and re-open it.

2. 501 3c designation 17 votes. The Civic Group has looked into what it will cost to obtain this designation ($1,000-$2,000). The $7,000 dollar we will receive after stage one of the Horizons Program will be utilized to gain this designation.

3. Web Page 14 votes. This was determined to be feasible and obtainable because of the relative low cost of startup. Nancy Coleman suggested having some students help in the startup and running of the website. It was also suggested to sell ads on the website, to offset the costs involved with running the web page.

4. Housing Development 10 votes. This may be a little harder to obtain because of the expense involved, but two nice duplexes were discussed, along with a subdivision north of Harlem. Also brought up in discussion was the possibility of tearing down old abandoned rundown properties to make way for some new ones.

5. News paper 5 votes. This also may be hard to obtain because of the expense involved in purchasing equipment, but a discussion was held on possibly trying to co-op with Tricia’s Trader, or another printer, on printing a bi-weekly newspaper.The Idea behind both the website, and newspaper was to try to keep the costs as low as