Come Visit the Rockford Community Center

The Rockford Community Center is open. We are located at 229 South First, just behind the Methodist Church. Current hours of operation are Mondays and Wednesdays, 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM and evenings from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM. The center is currently staffed by volunteers. If you would like to become a volunteer and help staff the center give us a call at 291-3605. The more volunteer staff we have the more hours the center can be made available to our community and of course, kids are always welcome.
If you are looking for a place to hold a meeting or teach a class, give us a call. If you have other questions please call me at 220-6779.

Hot Rockford Nights

WOW! Another successful car show for the Rockford Lyon's Club. I don't know how many cars were there today but talk about some shine and sparkle, those cars were awesome! They had great music, great cars, wonderful people and the weather could not of been any better for this event. The nice summer breeze kept everyone cool and comfortable. We had several vendors set up for the market and there were some of the nicest visitors strolling through the Rockford City Park. I had the opportunity to sit and visit with David K from Tekoa, age 71, still farming and playing with his truck. What a nice man, bet he has many stories to share.

Remember we will have the market each Saturday through 9/10/11. If you haven't had a chance to check it out or would like to set up your own table remember it's only $10.00 for the set up fee and those proceeds go to the Rockford Community Center, helping to keep it's doors open and provide a safe and fun place for all to visit and spend time. Set up time is between 8 and 9 in the park and the market hours run from 9-3.

Lorrie Pope
Rockford Community Center Chair
(509)220-6779

Rockford Community Center Update

The RCC held it 1st Community Center Update meeting on Tuesday, January 11th at the Harvest Moon. The staff at the Moon served up a hearty beef barley soup that really hit the spot on a cold winter night. Updates were given on the current status of the Community Center and upcoming plans. All of the many citizens of the community were thanked for their contributions of help and donations to the center. Feedback was given for events and classes that folks would like to see at the Community Center. The next meeting will be held on Monday, February 7th. Business meeting will start at 6:00 pm and general meeting will start at 6:30 pm. Place to be announced but most likely at the Moon. See you there.

Rockford Horizons Poverty Reduction Meeting Minutes May 17th, 2010

The meeting was called to order at 6:30pm at the Harvest Moon Restuarant. Eleven members were in attendance as well as Horizons trainer, Patrick Malone.
Minutes of the May 3, 2010 meeting were approved.

Community Gardens:
The people who were interested in helping with the gardens last year will be contacted.
The gardens have a need of an application of Round-up because of the infestation of morning glory. Bill Benson has tilled Garden #3 at the Stevensons. Someone has donated tomato plants that need to be planted "now". This will be done as help surfaces.
The 4-H group are willing to help with the gardens. Barb Gady is the contact person.
There was discussion with the Catholic church regarding the water timer for Garden #2This will be beneficial and Keith Wigen will research the cost.

Communications:
Bill Strawn suggested that we contact TV station KXLY and put our events on their local community calendar which airs in the morning during the 5:30 am segment of the show. It was advised that we also contact KHQ and KREM.
The Exchange paper is dedicating one to two pages for local news for the Palouse weekly. This is to take the place of the North Palouse Journal on a temporary basis.

Mayor Micki Harnois presented information on the Town of Odessa Public Development Authority (PDA). She explained that there are several PDAs established in smaller towns in Eastern Washington and they use the same boiler plate format and language. It is hoped that Rockford will set one up soon.

Old Business:
The Rockford Community Center received approval of the 501c 3 tax exempt status on May 10, 2010. Any donations of material or money will be noted as to donor and value and kept in the RCC records.
The Rockford beautification project will be brought before the Town Council.
The status of the sale or lease of the Exxon station is unknown.
Mayor Micki met with one of the Town webmasters on May 6th. It was suggested that we should hire a professional to take this position as the webmasters will be graduating from high school this summer and want to increase salary. Micki will explore possibilities of a professional webmaster and the cost if the current webmasters can not continue.

New Business:
Rockford Community Center
There will be a meeting soon to move items in the building away from the walls to begin the preparation process of cleaning, painting and moving in.
The Farmers' Market will begin on June 5th and will continue through the summer. It was asked that we search for musicians to perform.
The Horizons banner for the Town is 4 feet by 6 feet and can be displayed during every Horizons sponsored event. Mayor Micki asked where it would be kept. Patrick Malone suggested that we contact other Horizons communities to find out how theirs are being stored.
Patrick presented suggestions for the gardens such as "Plant A Row for the Hungry" and Feed Spokane. These projects provide produce that is donated to Inland Second Harvest. We opted to keep our produce in the Rockford area. There is a mobile food bank that may help distribute food. The food bank in Fairfield is our local receiver of our harvest.
A free community dinner is being provided on the 4th Thursday of the month in the Rockford Methodist Church basement. There will be no donations received. Anyone who wishes to help can contact Susan Gallagher for more information.

Meeting adjourned at 8:05 pm.

Respectfully submitted,
Mary-Lou Benson

WSU Sociology Students at Work for You!

Sociology 433, an undergraduate class at Washington State University, has been researching options and resources for topics that are important to your rural communities as you work to reduce poverty. Topics include: affordable housing, neighborhood safety, youth activities and much, much more.

Your community may be in contact with one of these teams, but all of their research may be relevant to the issues you are addressing. Click to the Horizons website http://www.horizons.wsu.edu/project/horizons3/community.html to read about their work.

Community Book Club

The following is a summary about the "Mayors (Community) Book Clubs" program which has been successful in several cities. The article is from the September 28, 2009 issue of the Nation Cities Weekly:

The project is an effort to develop community-wide early literacy. It is to promote school readiness among children well before first grade. Special components may include free and new books and literacy materials for families of young and school-age children, parent education classes, efforts to expand access to community-based early education resources and public events at which a community leader reads a book to children.

A brainstorming session for the Community Literacy Plan occurs to develop goals which focuses on strengthening local partnerships with schools, public libraries and community partners and developing methods to reach more children in the community while involving parents and older children.

Reading can be used as a means for problem-solving. With older students as mentors, they will be reading to young children and serve as peer leaders on such topics as the importance of helping others, staying healthy (preventing the flu, e.g.)and preparing for and succeeding in school and college. Senior citizens are also encouraged to read with children.

Since there is no library located in Rockford with the closest one being five miles away in Faifield, this would be a great community effort to engage everyone in encouraging and helping our youth to succeed in school and also become future leaders. A lending library is curently being created through the Rockford Community Center (RCC) group. Stay tuned for more information.

Community BBQ was a Big Success

The Horizons Community BBQ that was held in the Park on September 10th was attended by over 40 residents. All ages were represented and the food was great! Pete Abbey, manager of Fredneck's Beanery & Saloon (a local business) catered the event and served yummy pulled pork, coleslaw, beans and cornbread. Nobody went away hungry!
The Horizons team presented a brief summary of the proposed Poverty Reduction Strategic Plan and received valuable comments and additions from those in attendance. This information will all be evaluated in developing the long-range plan.

1st volunteer to join blog

Linda Jones, native of Rockford, is the first volunteer to come forward to be trained by WSU assistants, so she can add news from Rockford Historical Society to the blog.

Horizons communication and education team's goal is to partner with a volunteer from each of Rockford's organizations, clubs and businesses who will take the free training and become blog-authors for their fellow members.

With the help of volunteers Rockford Community's Horizons blog will become a powerful venue, and help reduce all aspects of poverty, no matter any particular definition of the term.

Communication is key to working together toward a common goal and community residents use their blog for local news, etc., because in some way or another, it's all tied together in efforts to increase leadership and reduce poverty. The only thing the blog may not be used for is personal gain (soliciting funds, etc).

Everyone is welcome to visit other Horizons communities' blogs, to see the different ways each one benefits. You'll find links to them here, http://horizons.wsu.edu/project/communityindex.html.

Please contact Micki Harnois (mickiharnois@gmail.com), Vivian Plank "Vivian Plank" (<VPlank@bannerbank.com>), or Mona Vanek (MT Scribbler <mtscribbler@air-pipe.com>) if you'd like to join Linda, become blog-author for a civic organization, business or church, and make this blog unique.

Mona Vanek

It's all happening this week!

Monday, August 10th, Rockford Community Center,6 p.m. Harvest Moon Banquet Room. Todd Hart, President, Ph: 291-4601.

Monday, August 10, Candidates Forum,7 p.m. McIntosh Grange. Contact, Susan Hegney, Ph: 995-7001, Carol Evans, Ph: 535-1165.

Tuesday, August 11th, Horizons, 6:30 p.m. Harvest Moon Banquet Room.
Wednesday, August 12th, 8:00-9:30 p.m. Basketball in the Park.

Thursday, August 13th, S.E. Spokane County Fair meeting, 7 p.m. Harvest Moon Banquet Room

Thursday, August 13th, DUSK. Movie in the Park

Saturday, August 15th, Farmers' & Flea Market in the park. 9:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.

Saturday, August 15th, Crochet class, 10:00 a.m. - noon, Harvest Moon Banquet room or at Farmers' & Flea Market in the Park

Horizons' WSU blog training benefits Rockford area residents

Rockford Horizons team members recently took advantage of free training at Washington State University to learn blogging skills. Their goal is to use blogging in ways that reduce poverty in their hometown.

Rhonda Gollehon, WSU Horizons and JoEllen Wollman, Horizons Program Assistant provided training in both beginning and advanced classes.

Micki Harnois (advanced) and Mona Vanek (beginner) were subsequently inducted to contribute posts to Rockford Blogspot, http://rockford-wa.blogspot.com/.

Everyone is invited to visit the blog and post comments. If area residents have community news they want to share they can have either Micki or Mona post it on the blog.

Growing awareness

Residents in Rockford and the surrounding communities that make up the Palouse region read about Rockford's Horizons blogspot in a news article published in the North Palouse Journal, May 28, 2009. headlined "Rockford develops a blogspot," and provided the Internet address.

Also, the article boosted the success of the survey Rockford Horizons Poverty Project team leaders circulated. The survey gathered ideas for what Rockford residents wanted on an official town website. Forty-four surveys were completed and returned.

Mona

Rockford's "Vision"

June 23, 2009


Twenty three Rockford residents came together at the first of two meetings and began defining their "Vision" of projects aimed at further reducing poverty in their community.

Applying skills learned in the nine-week Leadership Training phase, the process of reaching a concensus on goals was accelerated. Two groups formed, brainstormed, and then each condensed potential goals into eighteen, highest priority, most achievable projects addressing individual assets, community capacity and public policy.

All community members are invited to attend next week's Part II Visioning Horizons Poverty Project meeting, June 30th at Harvest Moon Banquet Room, beginning with food at 5:30pm. The goals will be combined and further refined. Plans for achieving the final selections will be drawn up. Project leaders will then solicit volunteers from the community to complete the projects by target-dates.