Idaho

It is the first of the month so here are the questions that will help you reflect on what is happening in your community.  When answering the questions please include the category number and title the question is from on your blog. For this month the questions are all from category 7. Taking action on leadership.   Anyone can answer the questions.

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• How has your community leadership expanded?
• What changes have been made in who is now involved in leadership positions?
• Are more people participating in leadership?
• Are different kinds of people (representing more sectors or parts of the community) now participating in community leadership?
• Does the community leadership reflect the community’s demographic profile?
• Are more low income people participating in community leadership?
• What changes have been made in the way your community recruits and trains new leaders? Sustains existing leaders?

More than 151,000 people qualified for food assistance in May, compared to nearly 100,000 at the same time last year, said Idaho Department of Health and Welfare officials. Enrollment in the state program has set a new record every month since December 2007, they said.The agency says more than 11,600 people enrolled in the program this year in April and May. These numbers are expected to increase after June 1, when eligibility rules that barred residents with more than $2,000 in assets from qualifying for food assistance were temporarily suspended.

Source: Idaho Statesman 6.29.09

The U.S. Census Bureau announced today that workers with a bachelor’s degree earned about $26,000 more on average than workers with a high school diploma, according to new figures that outline 2008 educational trends and achievement levels.     The tables also show that in 2008, 29 percent of adults 25 and older had a bachelor’s degree, and 87 percent had completed high school. That compares with 24 percent of adults who had a bachelor’s degree, and 83 percent who had completed high school in 1998.

Educational Attainment in the United States: 2008 is a series of tables containing data by characteristics such as age, sex, race, Hispanic origin, marital status, occupation, industry, nativity, citizenship status and period of entry. The tabulations also include historical data on mean earnings by educational attainment, sex, race and Hispanic origin.

In 2008, 29.4 million women and 28.4 million men 25 and older had a bachelor’s degree or higher. Women had a larger share of high school diplomas, as well as associate, bachelor’s and master’s degrees. More men than women had a professional or doctoral degree.

Other highlights:

• Workers with a high school degree earned an average of $31,286 in 2007, while those with a bachelor’s degree earned an average of $57,181.
• The race and Hispanic origin data show that 53 percent of Asians in the U.S. had a bachelor’s degree or more education. For non-Hispanic whites, it was 33 percent; for blacks; it was 20 percent; and for Hispanics, it was 13 percent.
• Among younger adults (age 25-29), 88 percent had completed high school, and 31 percent had completed college. Among adults 75 and over, 73 percent had completed high school and 17 percent had completed college.

The data in Educational Attainment in the United States: 2008 are from the Current Population Survey’s Annual Social and Economic supplement, which is conducted in February, March and April at about 100,000 addresses nationwide.

Partnership for Prescription Assistance helps qualified patients without prescription drug coverage get needed medicines. Many qualify for free or very reduced price prescriptions. The websites offers a “Help is Here Express” that offers trained specialists to help uninsured patients in need access information on more than 475 patient assistance programs, including nearly 200 programs offered by pharmaceutical companies. Click here to visit their website for more information.

Check out the website ‘All for Good’ and sign up to volunteer or post your own volunteer activity.

Info from the website: Are you looking for ways to give back to your community? All for Good makes it simple to find and share volunteer activities with friends and family.

Inspired by the call of President Obama to engage more Americans in service, a group of individuals from the technology, marketing and public sectors came together to build an open source application that allows you to find and share volunteer activities. All for Good lets you browse activities and find events based on your location or interests. The site is governed by Our Good Works a nonprofit organization that was formed by some of the people who initiated the project and who support the product’s growth.

“Half of all jobs in rural places are tied to small businesses, a rate 13 percent higher than in cities and suburbs. And people who work for small businesses are twice as likely to be uninsured, according to Jon Bailey of the Center for Rural Affairs in Lyons, Neb.”  Click here for the rest of this article from National Public Radio. For more information about rural health insurance and health care, please visit the Center for Rural Affairs.

Periodically I will be posting questions to be answered as part of the blog requirements of Horizons.  I have shared this information with the coaches but decided to use the blog to share it with you.  It is the communities responsibility to make sure that this portion of the blog requirements are met.  Please answer several of the following questions by June 15th.

Category 5. Building knowledge and awareness about leadership

1)In what ways has your community’s knowledge about leadership changed? How do you know?

2)Do community members see leadership as an individual or a community issue? How does it differ?

3)Is there any evidence that more people in the community feel like they can be or are leaders?

4)How would your community be different if more people think they have a role to play in community leadership?

Category 6. Building skills and mobilizing around leadership

1) What changes are you seeing in the way community leadership is exercised or carried out? How is it different?

2) How has your community changed after Leadership Plenty training?

3) In what ways have leadership skills been improved/enhanced? What is different?

4) What changes are you seeing in the way leadership is carried out? How decisions get made in your community?

5) What difference does the involvement of low income people make in community leadership?

If you have any questions, please contact your community coach or me.

Thanks!

Barbara

From ‘Reinventing Rural‘…
How cool would it be for your town to be named one of the “top 10 coolest” small towns in America? That’s exactly what 10 lucky communities experienced when voters selected them for the honor at BudgetTravel.com’s online contest.

It was even “cool” enough news for The Early Show at CBS News to pick up the story:

Serve.gov is a comprehensive clearinghouse of volunteer opportunities. Americans who are interested in volunteering can use this tool to locate opportunities to serve across the country and around the world. To find an opportunity based on geography, the volunteer can enter his or her ZIP code. To find an opportunity based on interest area, the volunteer can enter a keyword such as “education” or “environment”. All volunteer opportunities are listed by our partner organizations. Going forward, Serve.gov will include new technology and tools that will increase citizen participation, create networks of volunteers and highlight the work of volunteers have had the greatest impact in their communities. Serve.gov is managed by the Corporation for National and Community Service.

Posting your Volunteer Opportunity with Serve.gov
Having your volunteer opportunities posted with Serve.gov has several benefits: * Your volunteer opportunities will become part of a larger network, generating significantly more exposure than most organizations can get on their own;
* Recruiting volunteers online will extend and complement your current outreach efforts;
* Millions of individuals interested in responding to the President’s call to service can find your opportunities by simply specifying area of interest, ZIP Code or state; and
* Online tracking of matches of individuals with volunteer opportunities can help you with managing and training volunteers.

In order to have your opportunities listed on Serve.gov, you will need either to post them with one of the Serve.gov partner organizations listed below or click here to register your own project or event. There is no cost to have your volunteer opportunities posted. Once you post, your volunteer opportunities will become available on Serve.gov automatically (generally within one business day).

Please visit these links to watch short videos about the Horizons program in northern Idaho and in Montana…

The Sky’s the Limit for Idaho Horizons Communities (Horizons in northern Idaho)

Montana Horizons (pt. 1)
Montana Horizons (pt. 2)