Poverty Isn’t Just About Money
One thing we learned in the Horizons Study Circles is that poverty isn’t just about the income of our residents. Some of our residents may simply be unaware of the resources of our community. That’s why we’ve put together the Montrose Resource Book–a list of businesses, organizations AND services that we have available in Montrose.
A good example is that while we may not have a pharmacy in Montrose, we do have delivery from Salem Drug to the Montrose General Store. That can be a real resource for senior citizens, or anyone else who wants the convenience of medicines being delivered right in their own backyard. It’s one more way we’re trying to make a difference to fight poverty in our community.
October 4th, 2007 at 2:32 pm
This blog is a great place to log our thoughts and views of how we can address poverty. I have written a couple comments below and challenge everyone to do the same. Expressing our views is the foundation of ‘Montrose on the Move’.
One item that has become overwhelmingly obvious to me over the past months while working with the Horizons Project is the need to promote ourselves.
So often we have seen negative press due to natural disasters and other issues making headlines in the mass media. Most of the time this negative communication is the only link our distant neighbors have to our community.
We can make a difference by taking the initiative to be spokes people promoting all the good things our community has to offer. This can simply be a positive comment while having a conversation with our out of town peers or writing a newspaper article about an event or the greatness of our community.
Over time the reputation of our friendly community will spread to a family or a business looking to relocate. What may seem as a little or even insignificant comment or article in the paper can forever bias a persons opinion of a community. Positive comments will result in growth and prosperity for our community.
October 7th, 2007 at 9:49 am
Fellow Horizon Community,
Congratulations on the achievements that you have already reached and good luck to you on your future!
A resource book is a great idea to combat poverty–Good job! We are also planning a resource book. I have a quick question, where will your community keep your book so that community members will have access to it?
Thanks,
Marci
Sanborn Central
October 8th, 2007 at 10:07 pm
Marci,
Thanks for the encouragement. We hope Sanborn will also have ongoing successes.
As for the resource book, I hope you are able to pull one together. It’s been a great opportunity to discover things we didn’t know about our community–primarily all of the people who offered services or businesses that we weren’t aware of: construction, computer services, woodworking, carpet cleaning….the list goes on.
We are offering one book per family and began by handing it out at our Visioning/Strategic Planning Kickoff on Sunday. We have also put copies in our General Store on main street and in our City Finance office.
Keep us posted on your resource book. If there’s a confidential way for us to get your address, we would be happy to mail one to you.
Connie
November 3rd, 2007 at 7:02 pm
Oldham has created a resource and promotional pamphlet. We currently have them available in the bank, library, and churches. As we update and refine the pamphlet, we hope to get it out into other communities and tourist information sites as a promotional tool. By the way, the state tourism department has a site where you can add community events for the coming year. Oldham has advertised our Potato Days Festival that way. I just can never remember when it needs to be submitted so we missed the date for 2008.
November 5th, 2007 at 6:31 pm
Rogere,
It would be great if we could ‘trade’ the resource material that we’ve developed. If you’re interested in seeing what Montrose put together, I can get your name and e-mail from Martha so we could trade addresses. I know we’d be interesting in seeing Oldham’s material. Also, thanks for the tip on the state tourism department site. We’ll check into that.