Making a Commitment to the Next Generation
When we think about life on the prairie, most of us think about rugged individualism. Yet the community of Isabel, South Dakota, put that image to rest as they talk about the need for interdependency in order to survive in today’s rural economy.
While coal mining and the railroad industry once defined the town, at the heart of Isabel today is its hope and commitment to the youth of the community. One grandmother says, “We don’t have that many young people, so if someone has a baby, it’s a community baby. You go to the basketball game and everyone holds the baby until it’s hungry. Then it goes back to mom.” Children are a precious commodity in a town that needs people to stay for the town to grow. This is the kind of community where a mother can leave her baby with the owner of Sparky’s Bar and Grille for 10 minutes while she runs to the store. One mother says, “I don’t have to worry if I am at the cafe and my daughter wants to run get a video down the street.” All businesses on Main Street are in plain view of each other. This is a community where the norm is to be helpful and kind. Distrust is not a person’s first reaction.
With this vision of creating opportunities for young people to remain in the community, leaders of Isabel committed to Horizons, a community leadership development program sponsored by the Northwest Area Foundation. One outcome of the process has been increased involvement of younger adults in decision-making roles at the community level. The leadership process convinced old-timers to invite young folks in, and when they did, there was raised awareness that they, too, have a stake in the community. Where previously it was the older generation taking charge, now there are young adults chairing committees and taking on leadership roles.
It is this kind of leadership that will help Isabel keep the things it values and grow new opportunities. Isabel’s school is one thing the community definitely wants to keep. While enrollments have declined due to the shrinking area population, the school excels in both academics and team sports. With a strong science department and a choice of three languages, including Lakota (the language of the community’s indigenous people), students do very well academically. One Isabel student went to the International Science Fair competition with a project on the genetics of purebred bulls. Other students have gone on to participate in National History Day. The school and community take pride in these accomplishments, and when one youth wins a national competition, he or she turns around to help younger students achieve similar goals.
The town’s commitment to its children doesn’t begin with school. Most residents agree that one of the best additions in the past year is the new Isabel Community Day Care. The idea started with the school, because schools need young teachers who often need day care. The Isabel Betterment Society then applied for, and got, a Governor’s Day-care Facility — a prefabricated building constructed by South Dakota prisoners as part of a state program that provides affordable housing and day-care facilities to communities across the state. By early April 2006, the day-care center (serving up to 20 children) was open and immediately full.
With many people working minimum wage jobs that pay $5.15 an hour, one resident says, “If only one person in the family works, you have to make a choice: a house or a car. You can’t support a house and a car on one income here.” This means that both members of a family must work, sometimes two jobs each, to make ends meet. In order to keep young families from leaving, the residents of Isabel realized that day care was essential.
One Horizons program participant reflects, “I don’t think our day-care center could have been done without the Horizons program. Plus Isabel now has a better understanding of how to get the right people involved in a project, set a workable timeline, and approach any project in a businesslike way. Tasks are more clearly designated and split up among volunteers. It helps when you see things start to work that way.”
As leaders stepped forward, ideas flourished. One family has four sons, and they want their sons to stay in the area. As a family, they brainstormed business development ideas that provide employment for each son. In this way they practice interdependency — working together for the whole. Not only do the businesses provide for the family, but the businesses provide revenue for the town.
As a result of people coming together to create change, other improvements began. The town motel was renovated. Sparkey’s Cafe was updated with historical pictures documenting Isabel. Volunteers from the Isabel Betterment Society provided labor to fix up rental houses — needed for the town to grow. One resident says that people coming through town now comment on how nice it all looks. “Our appearance has changed our perception of ourselves as a town,” she adds. “There is a ‘yes we can’ attitude, where before, we were pretty demoralized. Now Horizons has been a ray of hope after a lot of darkness. It’s so good to know that somebody believed in us.” Another participant adds, “New assets were brought to light. Our own personal assets were brought out as we looked at what we truly enjoy doing. We found out things about each other we never knew. One woman in our community has her private pilot’s license! We never knew that about her.”
Cooperation has come in where competition used to be the rule. One Horizons participant explains that she now thinks in terms of the area or region rather than in the more common mode of small-town competition: “We are always rivals in sports, and that was one of the few ways we used to meet with each other. Horizons had us working together, and that made a difference. Problems are area-wide, and we need the whole region to survive.”
It is this spirit of working together, interdependence, that makes the annual Isabel Rodeo Celebration happen the first weekend of every August. The event opens with a youth rodeo for cowboys and cowgirls under 18. In addition to the regular rodeo, there is an open ladies jackpot, a motocross run, an all school reunion and a parade. A free BBQ lunch is also served.
What more could anyone ask for? Isabel has a school where foreign languages are taught, science is a priority, small class size is available for every student, and no one interested in sports sits on the bench all season. Isabel welcomes and nurtures extended families and welcomes new families to put down roots and create new businesses.
As if all that weren’t enough, Isabel has fresh air and a clear sky. In a night sky where the Big Dipper hangs as if held by an invisible magician and Orion’s belt looks close enough to touch, one woman says, “The northern lights shimmer bright enough to wake me from my dreams.”