Photo courtesy of IEDC

Guest post by Deb Brown

What attendees learned from attending the Idea Friendly Session by SaveYour.Town at the International Economic Development Council Conference — Big Ideas you can copy in your town 

Becky McCray and I were excited to lead an interactive Idea Friendly workshop at the International Economic Development Council Conference in Dallas in September of 2023.

The Idea Friendly Method is:

• You gather your crowd with a big idea. 
• You turn that crowd into a capable network through building connections.
• You and the crowd accomplish the big idea through small steps.

What Happened in the Idea Friendly Workshop

Attendees developed their own Idea Friendly Projects after learning what Idea Friendly is and how to use it effectively in rural communities. 

Engaging the audience, we asked what their rural challenges were. Not surprisingly, they aligned with the top 5 rural challenges on our Survey of Rural Challenges results: 

1. Shortage of good housing
2. Downtown is dead
3. Not enough volunteers
4. Losing Young People
5. Lack of Childcare

The attendees broke off into groups and chose a challenge to work on together. Each table had a flipchart sheet and the group worked the challenge through the Idea Friendly Method. The different groups presented their results to the entire room.

Photo courtesy of IEDC

What the Big Ideas were: 

Challenge: Housing

Big Idea: Offsetting public infrastructure to incentivize private development 

This idea brought to light the number of people who wanted help with a 12 unit housing development. The first small step they would take is to work with the economic development organization to find ways to bring the interested parties together for a conversation. 

Challenge: Not enough volunteers

Big Idea: Volunteer engagement and involving the whole community 

Their ideas included helping to promote all the possibilities for volunteering and creating a guide to managing volunteers ensuring any required government protocols are well explained. They created a brilliant tagline: making volunteering painless. 

One attendee said to me, “Friend, I’m just a redneck from Alabama and I never get to meet people from other places. This was awesome!” Attendees came from the continental United States, Puerto Rico, Bermuda, Saipan, and Canada.

Challenge: Losing our young people

Big Idea: Helping youth boomerang back 

This group was excited about working with different organizations and people to create a strong publicity campaign. This big idea uses storytelling and sharing the small wins with some catchy promotional pieces. “Wish you were here”, “While you were gone”, and “We’ve grown up” are some of the hooks to use in promoting the community to their audience of young people. 

Big Idea: Downtown is dead

These folks took their big idea to fill the downtown and built out a list of who else wanted to work with them, and then built possible connections that could help get it done. They realized they were not alone and had others in their towns that wanted to help. 

Challenge: Lack of childcare

Big Idea: Create a downtown childcare facility 

After identifying a long list of people and organizations that would want to join this project, the group came up with the idea of playground “playdate” to bring them all together for productive discussion. They were excited to see how a new downtown childcare facility could not only improve the availability of childcare, but also spur downtown revitalization and contribute to positive placemaking. 

Creating Idea Friendly Projects is an easy to use and effective way to address our rural challenges. 

This interactive IEDC session was a great success, and it was inspiring to see the plans the participants came up with to address the challenges they were facing. By working together and using innovative approaches, we can create more vibrant and resilient rural communities that are better equipped to face the challenges of the future.

“Thank you both so much for your preparation and execution of your session today! Sincerely, it was a true pleasure meeting and supporting you today. Your preparation and professionalism was reflected in your session. I appreciate your adaptability as well.”

Alexa Schultz, IEDC

Next steps:

• Reach out to SaveYour.Town about an Idea Friendly Workshop for your community or event
• Read more about the Idea Friendly Method. 
• You can also watch a 24 minute Idea Friendly video for a $5 investment into your community. 
• Don’t forget to sign up for our free weekly newsletter that addresses rural challenges! 

Source: Survey of Rural Challenges, 2021

One under-utilized source of workers: At-risk students

Tony Guidroz, from San Saba, Texas, told me he was shocked when he found out there were 702 kids in the local school district, and more than 400 were considered “at-risk” either because of grades or language barriers.

Tony wanted to give them more choices and more chances. So he shared his idea for a Blue Collar Career Fair where, rather than employers letting grades or language barriers stop kids from applying, employers could connect directly with these kids.

Tony’s brilliant insight was to skip the usual lecture part of the career fair. Instead why not make it all hands-on? From trying out a welder to driving a skid steer loader. That would grab kids attention while it also helped employers look beyond “at-risk” status.

Give at-risk kids hands-on career experiences

Another career fair with a hands-on portion came from Jimi Coplen. She participates in a career fair in Knox County, Texas, population: 3,353

“We feature a lot of careers that can be done in rural communities but pay big bucks. But we also feature things such as Marine Biology – which can’t be done anywhere close to here! Turns out, the kids were totally enamored by this career! It opened their eyes to new possibilities.

“Our day brings in about 30 different speakers from 20 different career fields. The kids get to pick…We do it regionally, focusing on small schools that may not get as many opportunities to hear such quality speakers. It is a tough event to pull together, but the benefits are well worth the efforts.”

Some of the hands-on demonstrations included trying on a full haz-mat suit and testing physical therapy tools.

Trying out a haz-mat suit at the rural career fair. Photo courtesy of Jimi Coplen.

At the career fair, high school kids tried out some physical therapy tools hands-on. Photo courtesy of Jimi Coplen

How are you reaching the kids in your town who get labeled as at-risk? What real world career experiences do they get hands-on?

Learn more practical steps in the Rural Workforce Trends video from SaveYour.Town

How do we as parents set our kids up to lead into the future? Photo via USDA

By Paula Jensen

It seems I have almost always been interested in leadership.  My parents modeled leadership as I was growing up through their active roles in community, church, and school.  I joined 4-H at the age of eight, was called a “ring-leader” as an elementary student (which I don’t think this was a compliment) and continued to take on leadership roles throughout high school, college and beyond.  But my most important leadership role is as a parent. Through this role I’ve learned that all the wisdom and love in the world doesn’t necessarily protect any of us from parenting in ways that could potentially hold our children back from thriving, gaining independence and becoming the leaders they have the potential to be.

I was intrigued as I read an article by Dr. Tim Elmore and learned about how we as parents are keeping our children from becoming the next generation of leaders that are needed in this world.  The article shared seven harmful parenting behaviors that keep our children from becoming leaders – of their own lives and of the world they will live in:

1. We don’t let our children experience risk – We live in a world that warns us of danger and mistrust at every turn. The “safety first” preoccupation constantly reinforces our fear of losing our kids, so we do everything we can to insulate them from healthy risk-taking behavior and it’s had an adverse effect. Kids need to fail a few times to learn it’s normal. If parents remove risk from children’s lives, we will likely experience high arrogance and low self-esteem in our growing leaders.
2. We rescue too quickly – Today’s generation of young people has not developed some of the life skills kids did 30 years ago because adults swoop in and take care of problems for them. When we rescue too quickly and over-indulge our children with “assistance,” we remove the need for them to navigate hardships and solve problems on their own. It’s parenting for the short-term and it sorely misses the point of leadership—to equip our young people to do it without help. Sooner or later, kids get used to someone rescuing them: “If I fail or fall short, an adult will smooth things over and remove any consequences for my misconduct.” When in reality, this isn’t even remotely close to how the world works, and therefore it disables our kids from becoming competent adults.
3. We rave too easily – Kids quickly observe that Mom and Dad are the only ones who think they’re awesome when no one else is saying it. They begin to doubt the objectivity of their parents; it feels good in the moment, but it’s not connected to reality. When we rave too easily and disregard poor behavior, children eventually learn to cheat, exaggerate and lie.
4. We let guilt get in the way of leading well – Your kids will get over the disappointment of you telling them “not now” or “no”, but they won’t get over the effects of being coddled. Let them fight for what they really value and need. As parents, we tend to give them what they want when rewarding our children, especially with multiple kids. When one does well in something, we feel it’s unfair to praise and reward that one and not the other. This is unrealistic and misses an opportunity to enforce the point to our kids that success is dependent upon our own actions and good deeds. Be careful not to teach them a good grade is rewarded by a trip to the mall. If your relationship is based on material rewards, kids will experience neither intrinsic motivation nor unconditional love.
5. We don’t share our past mistakes – Healthy teens are going to want to spread their wings and they’ll need to try things on their own. We as adults must let them, but that doesn’t mean we can’t help them navigate these waters. Share with them the relevant mistakes you made when you were their age in a way that helps them learn to make good choices. (Avoid negative “lessons learned” having to do with smoking, alcohol, illegal drugs, etc.) Also, kids must prepare to encounter slip-ups and face the consequences of their decisions. Share how you felt when you faced a similar experience, what drove your actions, and the resulting lessons learned. Because we’re not the only influence on our kids, we must be the best influence.
6. We mistake intelligence, giftedness and influence for maturity – Intelligence is often used as a measurement of a child’s maturity, and as a result parents assume an intelligent child is ready for the world. That’s not the case. Some professional athletes and Hollywood starlets, for example, possess unimaginable talent, but still get caught in a public scandal. Just because giftedness is present in one aspect of a child’s life, don’t assume it pervades all areas. There is no magic “age of responsibility” or a proven guide as to when a child should be given specific freedoms, but a good rule of thumb is to observe other children the same age as yours. If you notice that they are doing more themselves than your child does, you may be delaying your child’s independence.
7. We don’t practice what we preach – As parents, it is our responsibility to model the life we want our children to live. To help them lead a life of character and become dependable and accountable for their own words and actions. As the leaders of our homes, we can start by only speaking honest words – white lies will surface and slowly erode character. Watch yourself in the little ethical choices that others might notice, because your kids will notice too. If you don’t cut corners, for example, they will know it’s not acceptable for them to either. Show your kids what it means to give selflessly and joyfully by volunteering for a service project or with a community group. Leave people and places better than you found them, and your kids will take note and do the same.

Raising children who are strong independent leaders is not about their happiness today, but about their readiness for their many tomorrows. The truth is, parents who are able to focus on tomorrow, not just today, produce better results.

How can we as parents move away from these behaviors that are holding our children back?

It’s important for us as parents to become exceedingly self-aware of our words and actions when interacting with children. Care enough to train them, not merely treat them to a good life. Coach them, more than coddle.  And try these 10 ideas as a starting point:

1. Talk over the issues you wish you would’ve known about adulthood.
2. Allow them to attempt things that s-t-r-e-t-c-h them and even let them fail.
3. Discuss future consequences if they fail to master certain disciplines.
4. Aid them in matching their strengths to real-world problems.
5. Furnish projects that require patience, so they learn to delay gratification.
6. Teach them that life is about choices and trade-offs; they can’t do everything.
7. Initiate adult-like tasks such as paying their own bills or making business deals.
8. Introduce them to community mentors in an area of interest to them.
9. Help them envision a fulfilling future, and then discuss the steps to get there.
10. Celebrate the progress they make toward independence and responsibility.

Video: Connecting with Kids

SaveYour.Town created a video to show how they connect with kids and help them to play a role in shaping the future of their town. The Connecting with Kids video is available at SaveYour.Town.

Castle Rock, Washington, takes beautification seriously. This storage lot sits smack dab in the middle of their beautiful downtown. This is how it looked before they turned it into an art gallery. Photo by Nancy Chennault.

You’ve seen it before: a chain link fence right in the middle of a downtown. Usually there’s barbed wire at the top. Let’s face it, barbed wire is not the friendliest look for a downtown. We can do better.

Why chain link in the first place?

When a business ends up with an empty lot they can use for storage downtown, there’s a strong drive to fence it off and protect their goods. Chain link topped with barbed wire is cheap and easy.

Businesses still need to store things. No one wants to spend a lot of money to replace the fence with something friendlier. Heck, we don’t even want to spend money at all if we can avoid it.

How could you make it look better?

A whole group of us brainstormed some ideas for you:

• Add colorful slats in rainbow patterns, waves, words or logos
• Frame art and hang it from the chain link, inside or outside
• Hang twinkle lights from the fence and barbed wire
• Twist wire foil tinsel garland around the barbed wire
• Hang whirly gigs or streamers to dance in the wind
• Set up a sculpture display in front of the fence (most fences are usually set back from the property line) or just behind the fence
• Create cut-out art to hang on the fence
• Hang some wayfinding signs to direct people to cool things around town

The Boise, Idaho, water reclamation plant features this chain link fence mural. The colors are little cups designed to pop right into the chain link spaces. Photo by Becky McCray.

The Stream of Dreams “mural” made up of individual painted fish shapes dresses up the fence alongside the school buildings in Castle Rock, Washington. Learn more about Stream of Dreams. Photo by Nancy Chennault.

How Castle Rock, Washington, made chain link fences into art galleries

When I visited Castle Rock, I pointed out the storage lot next the hardware store that in the photo at the top of this story. It’s not going to go away, so why not use it to hang art? Turns out they already had some kids’ art hanging on chain link fences, just around the corner in a less-visible place. So they moved it and added a big way-finding arrow to point out nearby attractions.

Originally, the art squares were hanging in a hard-to-find location. See those slats in the fence? You could easily use slats to be more artistic with rainbow patterns or logos. Photo by Becky McCray.

The students helped move their artwork to the highly-visible location downtown. Photo by Nancy Chennault.

The art now includes a big arrow to point folks to the nearby wildlife pond and the old jail park. You hardly notice the fence or wire at all now. Photo by Nancy Chennault.

Have you seen any good chain link art?

I’d love to see photos of dressed-up chain link fences you’ve seen anywhere. Share the ideas so we can inspire even more small towns to more beautiful fences.

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