Choteau, MT

It’s New Year’s Resolution time again. I sort of gave up on specific resolutions a few years ago, and for the past couple of years I have resolved to just try to do a little better at my every day life. This year, however, beset with an ever-increasing list of activities related to my child, on top of a handful of volunteer commitments, added to an extremely busy Holiday season, I pondered a new resolution: Simplify. I need to simplify, I thought. Isn’t that what all the Oprahs and Dr. Phils and other self-help gurus recommend to stressed out, worn out Boomers and Gen-Xers? Drop all but the essentials, focus on your family and maybe one thing that gives you relaxation and pleasure, and forget the rest. Up until yesterday, that sounded both appealing and sensible.

But yesterday I was thinking about the Study Circles and the Action Forum and the upcoming Leadership Plenty opportunity, and it suddenly hit me: when we simplify too much, and focus exclusively on our own lives, what do we lose? Or more importantly what does everyone else lose? All the people who chose to be involved in the Horizons program, or to volunteer on various community projects weren’t simplifying their lives at all. You might even say they were complicating them, by adding another responsibility, another thing to do each week. But it was for such compelling reasons: to make this already good place a truly great place to live and work and play. To help their fellow humans. To make a difference in someone else’s life.

So I came up with a new motto: Resolve to Complicate. What does that mean? I’m not entirely sure yet, but I know it means that I will keep doing all of those extras that I already do, and trying to do them as well as I can. For a number of people it might mean signing up to help with one of the tasks identified at the Action Forum, or signing up for the Leadership Plenty training.

 How do will you resolve to Complicate your life?

As I was sitting on the beach a little over a week ago, enjoying the warm air, palm trees, and soft ocean breeze, I was actually thinking about the Study Circles and the Action Forum and what everyone in Choteau had been talking about for the past 6 weeks. It all seemed so far away, and quite frankly, so difficult. I found myself thinking that if only everyone in town - and I mean EVERYONE - were treated to a week of tropical ease now and then, everything would probably be so much easier. Everything seems more possible, and a person is inclined to be more relaxed and generous and positive about life when their toes are buried in warm sand and a drink with a little umbrella in it sits immediately at hand.

Alas - that is not the real world that we live in. And while I was lost in these flights of fancy, you all were hard at work at the Action Forum, summing up a lot of good work and planning for a lot more. I have invited a couple of people to write about their impressions of the Forum and hope to post those here very soon. I have heard that it was an evening of inspiration.

At the Forum, participants voted from a summary list of the ideas each circle developed. The top 4 items that the group voted should and could be done by summer are:

• Create a coordinator position to provide information and direct people to the resources available in Choteau and the surrounding area
• Establish a community garden
• Have community service credits count toward high school graduation
• Establish a community scholarship fund to help children and adults participate in local activities and continuing education

In upcoming blogs I will try to dig a little deeper into what each of these is all about and how these efforts are progressing. I will also post about the Leadership Plenty opportunity that I hope many of you will choose to participate in. Click here for an invitation to the sessions in Choteau, and here or on the “Leadership Plenty” link under the Blogroll heading in the right-hand sidebar for more information about the Leadership Plenty program.

Aloha and Merry Christmas!

We finally got a bit of snow on the ground (though with this wind howling, it may not last…) and it’s looking a lot like Christmas around town. The lights are up and local residents and downtown businesses are once again doing a great job decorating their houses and storefronts.

The Christmas Stroll, scheduled for Saturday, Dec. 6 (that’s tomorrow!)  seems to get better every year. There’s a full day of events and activities scheduled: Saturday morning you can head downtown with your Christmas Stroll button on (made by Choteau students and available at several local businesses) and take advantage of holiday specials at many stores.  There will be a kids’ movie at the Roxy along with the Jaycees’ food drive, Santa’s arrival and fire truck rides with him, a chili feed, photos with Santa for pets and/or kids, the annual ski swap, a gift bazaar, cookie decorating, a bonfire, the Jingle Bell run…. and more. Check out this week’s Acantha in print or online for a full listing and details of all the events.

The Christmas Stroll is a wonderful opportunity to experience many of the great things about Choteau. It’s an opportunity to support our neighbors’ livelihoods by shopping at their businesses, a chance to support our favorite local causes, and a great way to get out and visit with each other in a fun and festive atmosphere.  Enjoy!

Tonight I sat in on the last session of one of the study circles, and it got me all antsy to do something RIGHT NOW. I know – the Action Forum isn’t until next week, and at least some of the ideas presented there won’t be ripe for real action for perhaps quite a while. But there are things we can all do, right here and now:

• Pick a tag or two off the Caring Tree and purchase a little Christmas happiness for someone who really needs it
• Do that purchasing here in town, so that our local merchants benefit from our business
• Choose an extra few healthy, non-perishable food items when we’re grocery shopping and drop them off at the food pantry
• At the Christmas Stroll next weekend put the name of someone who needs a tree but otherwise won’t get one into the Chamber of Commerce Christmas tree giveaway drawing
• Take a good look around our neighborhoods to see if there is anyone who might benefit from a skill we have, and offer up an afternoon to help them out
• Contribute a little to the Montana Energy Share program to help make a neighbor’s home a little warmer this winter
• Call the Choteau School to see if we can contribute to the Backpack Buddies program or volunteer in some other way
• Smile and say hello to someone 

 I could say that this would be in the true Christmas spirit, but that’s not even what it’s really all about. It’s about all the reasons we love Choteau – the spirit of volunteerism that thrives here, the take-care-of-your-neighbor attitude that abounds, the friendliness and warmth that are waiting to be tapped. This is what continually surprises me about this place: we can argue pretty sharply about political or other issues, but when something needs to get done, we park the attitude at the door and roll up our sleeves together.  Let’s keep up the good work! 

And… stay tuned in to the Action Forum (Dec. 9, 6:30 p.m., Choteau Baptist Church) for more great ideas about how to make Choteau an even better place for everyone.

The study circles have wrapped up their fourth session and have only one more to go. Last week they began the exciting but difficult task of answering the question, “What do we do now?” They dug down into the reasons for poverty, and found they were not easy to pin down. There are many views on the causes, and some of those views may even have different roots. For example: why are 2.8% of the people in Teton County unemployed? Are there no available jobs – despite that the number of jobs has increased by 32% since 1969 (follow the Teton County Profile link in the right sidebar for more statistics)? Are those among us without jobs just irresponsible? If so,why? Is it that some of us were born into a culture of poverty and have not learned how to take the reins? Or is it the grinding assault on self-esteem that has worn down people who once were ambitious? Or is it something else entirely – bad luck in the form of a health crisis or job loss, a lack of jobs that pay a true living wage, bad public policy, lack of support systems…? What do you think?

This week, I sat in with a group who began tackling the tough questions about approaches to action. They found that this wasn’t an easy task, either. With so many causes of poverty, how do we find the right solutions? Some problems were initially thought to be beyond our ability to affect, such as the lack of jobs in the area. But as the group began discussing other issues, they found that they had come back around into ideas that could create some jobs, after all. They also found that addressing one problem wound up addressing others. I was very struck by how a problem that at first seemed un-solvable suddenly became something we could tackle, when we looked at it from a different angle.

What are some ideas you have about how to make life better for the people of Choteau?

Meanwhile – don’t forget to mark Dec. 9 on your calendar! This is your opportunity to come hear more about the Horizons program and about where we go from here. You can read more about it in Jane Wolery’s column in this week’s Choteau Acantha.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Over the past 3 weeks the study circles have been discussing what enriches life in Choteau, as well as what poverty looks like here.  From the very beginning, we have learned that poverty does not always mean lack of money; it can mean a lack of any of the things that sustain people and communities in a healthy, viable way. And what I have heard from the study circles intrigues me. For almost everything identified by one group as a strength in our town, they or another group has seen some related aspect that is lacking. The groups are uncovering the light and dark, the ups and downs, the yin and yang of Choteau. A few examples:

• Schools – Small class size is a plus, but declining enrollments are a concern both for funding and as an indicator of fewer young families in the community.
• Friendliness – Many mentioned the warm, small-town welcome of Choteau, while others noted that it can be hard to get to know people, or to be accepted. Some people expressed concern about the deep, occasionally rancorous divisions that seem to split Choteau residents on political and other issues.
• Social Safety Net – Choteau has a food pantry, involved churches and youth groups, retirement homes, a senior center, and Choteau Activities, an organization helping developmentally disabled adults. Yet some circles noted a lack of emotional or other support for kids in problem homes, and others expressed concern about the number of people in need of financial help, food, and housing.
• Business Community – We have a  lively Main Street featuring a diversity of businesses; this is unusual for a town this size in this day and age. Nevertheless, the groups noted that recruitment and retention of local businesses is a concern, and is tied to a number of factors, including cost of living, infrastructure, and our proximity to low-priced shopping opportunities in Great Falls.
• Medical Services – If you live in or near Choteau you have access to medical clinics, a hospital with a 24-hour emergency room, dental and vision clinics, mental health services, and chiropractic care. But there is grave concern in Choteau about whether the hospital will be able to stay open, and what mix of clinics and medical providers will be available even a year from now.
• And the list goes on…

I am looking forward to the rest of the conversation that will occur over the remaining couple of weeks of study circles, and to the solutions that people create to better balance the yin and the yang. If you have some thoughts about these ideas, please feel free to comment on this post by clicking the “Comment” link below, or e-mail me at magpie@3rivers.net.

Meanwhile, if you would like to know more about the actual statistics of life in Choteau and the surrounding area, click on the following links: Choteau Profile and Teton County Profile, also linked under the heading “Blogroll” in the righthand sidebar.

Welcome to the Choteau Community Blog! I am looking forward to beginning this digital adventure and to the conversations that it will hopefully generate over the next few months (or years?). During the next couple of weeks I will be posting about some of the discussions that have been going on in the Horizons program Study Circles – thoughts everyone has begun sharing about what poverty looks like in Choteau, as well as thoughts about all the things that make Choteau such a special place. I will also do my best to capture the hard work that is presented in the Action Forum coming up on December 9 – which I am sorry to say that I won’t be able to attend.

…Which brings me to an important thing about this Blog – I certainly can’t be more than one place at a time (although my appointment book sometimes disagrees with me about that!), so I will need to rely on some of you to help provide information, ideas, pictures, etc. for the Blog. It is, after all, a Community Blog! If you have in mind something you’d like to see on here, please email me at:

magpie@3rivers.net

Meanwhile, I will be posting SOON about the Study Circles as well as providing some information about our community. Once I get a little more practice with the blogging software, I hope to also provide some photos, videos (well, if I get really good…) and useful links.

I look forward to sharing this community conversation with you all!

- Wendy Maples
Choteau Community Blogging Coordinator