Hopa Mountain News Blog

Application due: June 30, 2010

Hopa Mountain, a Bozeman-based nonprofit organization, announces the availability of competitive sub-grants for Youth Leaders in Service. This Learn and Serve America Community-Based grant program is designed to engage rural and tribal youth, ages 11-17, living in Montana, Wyoming, and South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation, in leading service-learning activities that create healthier communities. To be eligible to apply for the Youth Leaders in Service sub-grant, each applying organization must submit a Preliminary Application to the four-day service-learning training that will take place from August 9-12, 2010 at Luccock Park Camp in Paradise Valley (south of Livingston, MT). Community-based and out-of-school program directors are invited to submit a complete Preliminary Application by June 30, 2010, which outlines all four participants who will be attending the training. The Preliminary Application can be found at www.hopamountain.org/programs. Following full completion of the service-learning training by all of an applying organization’s attendees, organization’s will then be eligible to apply for a sub-grant award of up to $15,000.00 to initiate and implement Youth Leaders in Service in their home communities from Fall 2010 through Summer 2011. Final Applications will be due October 1, 2010 and will be made available to attendees at the August service-learning training in Luccock Park.

Up to sixteen sub-grantees will be awarded a Youth Leaders in Service sub-grant to receive up to $15,000 in funds. Funds must be matched 1:1 in cash or in-kind support by sub-grantee organizations. Rural (towns with less than 35,000 people) and tribal communities are eligible to apply. Preference, only, will be given to participating organizations that serve a high percentage of children through free and reduced lunch programs.

Hopa Mountain’s mission is to invest in rural and tribal citizen leaders, adults and youth, who are working to improve education, ecological health and economic development. “Through Youth Leaders in Service, rural and tribal youth will have the opportunity to design and implement innovative service projects in cooperation with local community partners,” said Bonnie Sachatello-Sawyer, Executive Director of Hopa Mountain. Hopa Mountain will provide ongoing training and technical assistance to selected youth program leaders and teen citizen leaders throughout the Northern Rockies.

Marissa Spang, Youth Leaders in Service Coordinator at Hopa Mountain, will host several free, live informational webinars throughout June 2010 on Youth Leaders in Service. Every webinar will offer an introduction to service-learning and an opportunity to initiate service-learning through Youth Leaders in Service. Service-learning is a teaching and learning strategy that integrates meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teach civic responsibility and build community leadership and connections. Service-learning projects address important community needs and unmet opportunities through strategic inquiry, committed action and reflection and lead to visible and sustainable outcomes.

The free webinars will be hosted on the following dates and times:

June 2, 2010 from 2:00PM-3:30PM
June 4, 2010 from 10:00AM-11:30AM
June 8, 2010 from 2:00PM-3:30PM
June 10, 2010 from 10:00AM-11:30AM
June 14, 2010 from 2:00PM-3:30PM

The webinars are open to educators and community members who are interested in learning more about service-learning and bringing service-learning to their communities through Youth Leaders in Service projects. There is no charge to participate in the live webinars and registration is not required. However, please note that participants must be able to access a phone line, a computer and the Internet. The following web page gives the webinar link, the phone number and the conference ID number that participants must use to access the webinar: www.hopamountain.org/programs.

Youth Leaders in Service is made possible through Learn and Serve America, a program of the Corporation for National and Community Service. Learn and Serve America helps over one million students every year make meaningful contributions in their communities while building their academic and civic skills and establishing a lifelong commitment to service. The Corporation for National and Community Service engages more than four million Americans in service each year through Senior Corps, AmeriCorps, and Learn and Serve America.

Opportunity Link recently worked with Hopa Mountain, the Montana Budget & Policy Center, and WEEL to organize an Imagine Montana session for northcentral Montana. This citizen leaders planning session, held in Havre on March 29, brought together 35 leaders across the Hi-Line who discussed how to become more actively engaged with shaping state policy that helps struggling families.  Participants recognized that many working Montanans are struggling with the economic crisis. Many working families have found it hard to make ends meet because wages have not paid enough to meet basic needs. Small businesses, the largest type of employer in Montana, are finding it harder and harder to provide affordable health care and retirement plans for their employees, who are finding it harder and harder to pay for them.

Recognizing these factors, Imagine Montana conversations in Havre centered on five focus areas: Increasing the quality and quantity of value-added Montana products; creating more “green” jobs; increasing job-related training in secondary school through higher education; early childhood education and child care; and ecological health/farm-to-organic markets. Groups formed into these five discussion areas and outlined ideas and future work plans. Individuals identified policy areas that they would like to work on in the future.

As more Imagine Montana discussions continue across the state, there will be opportunities for northcentral Montana citizens to join working policy groups with others who are interested in working on similar initiatives. Imagine Montana partners are now working on a new website to keep citizens apprised of the project’s progress.

For more information, please contact Bonnie Sachatello-Sawyer, Hopa Mountain executive director at bsawyer@hopamountain.org.

ANACONDA – It doesn’t take much to imagine a better Benny Goodman Park: littering, vandalism and suspected drug use plague its reputation as a spot for delinquents.

A group of Anaconda youth is challenging that fortune through action and ownership.

“Imagine the Park,” a teen-led service project launched in January, is creeping into reality. What began as a few ideas proposed by skateboarders has grown into grand rehabilitation for a troubled hangout.

The overall concept is still in its infancy, but aims to create fun and healthy alternatives for all kids. New playground equipment and skate park expansion are among the possible improvements moving forward.

Deb Cuny, executive director of the Anaconda Family Resource Center, and VISTA coordinator JoAnna Thayer oversee the project’s many ambitions.

“What we’ve chosen to do is look at that park and build more assets,” Cuny said. “We realize we have something positive down there.”

A $15,000 Learn and Serve America matching grant lifted the project off the ground, funded by Bozeman’s Hopa Mountain Inc. at the beginning of the year.

Hopa Mountain appreciated how “Imagine the Park,” plans to take on a high risk area of the Anaconda, Cuny said.

With that money and additional fundraising to back their potential, project leaders invited the public to a kick-off event Jan. 9 at the park, which about 50 people attended.

From that meeting came the kids’ list of key ideas, which Cuny said they are continuing to develop.

“We’re telling kids we’re building our foundation here, and we have to build it strong,” Cuny said.

Brainstorming new ideas

“Imagine the Park” meets weekly at the Anaconda Family Resource Center building, broken into five committees to explore every corner of Benny Goodman.

The original skateboarders continue their work on the skate park

committee. Others may choose improvement and repairs, playground and pavilion, new projects or policy and enforcement.

An executive committee is also in place to oversee the budget and make all final decisions. It is made up of a few leaders from the other focus

committees.

Together, they work on specific action plans for feasible ideas,

Thayer said.

“Each committee will be

responsible for going through each idea and determining which are

realistic to accomplish this year,” she said.

Surveys to Fred Moodry Middle School and Anaconda High School will generate a more inclusive picture of what the park’s most frequent users want to see.

Questionnaires go out in mid-April, with results back by mid-May, Cuny said. It will include types of projects, and park hours.

“We’ll go over our key ideas and funnel those down,” she said. “We’re trying to make this as inclusive as possible.”

Kids’ involvement

Anaconda High students Harold LaForge and Trey Kahm waited as long as they could for something to change at Benny Goodman. A few years’ deterioration left the skate park less and less fun to drop into.

LaForge and Kahm, both 16-year-old sophomores, said they couldn’t deal with the conditions.

“A lot of stuff there is breaking,” Kahm said. “It’s just run-down and nasty.”

The skate park at Benny Goodman has gone downhill since it was built in 2005, Kahm said.

“I think every five years, a skate park should start adding stuff on,” he said.

Five years later, Kahm and LaForge joined the base group of skateboarders seeking to clean the park. They joined with the Family Resource Center, and “Imagine the Park” was born.

The kids simply wanted lighting during the summer so they could skate later at night, Cuny said.

“All it took was for these kids to know someone was behind them,” she said.

On the skate park committee, LaForge and Kahm are thinking big. They said they’d like to see expansion to include street-style terrain, and a repair to the drain to cut down on pools of murky storm water.

“It’s a good place for kids to hang out, up until when it’s become so trashy,” Kahm said.

Community involvement

Pat Huber, director of Anaconda-Deer Lodge County Parks and Recreation, said they will work with kids to provide whatever resources they can to improve what he described as “an eyesore.”

“I commend them,” Huber said. “It’s a great start, and if we can convince the rest of the community to take responsibility like these kids, it’s a win for us.”

“Imagine the Park” made a presentation to the Anaconda commission March 23, and chairman Neal Warner told the Montana Standard they would support the project any way they can.

“I’m excited about projects like this where the youth take charge,” Warner said. “It’s neat, because it teaches them how to get involved.”

Project leaders will look to rally community support April 24 for Global Youth Service Day. With help from AWARE Inc., they will hold a recycling drive to help clean the park.

It also works as a fundraiser, Thayer said. Everyone is encouraged to join the effort.

“As adult leaders, we must mentor the youth,” Thayer said.

Reporter George Plaven may be reached via e-mail at george.plaven@lee.net.