Idaho

The Northwest Area Foundation announced winners of the 2008 Great Strides Awards given to communities working creatively to reduce poverty. Four communities: Elk City, Idaho; Glendive, Montana; Roseburg, Oregon and Eagle Butte, South Dakota. were each awarded $100,000.

Elk City, Idaho -- Framing Our Community, Inc. (FOC) (Idaho County,
poverty rate 15 percent; focus area population 15,542) Bounded by the
rustic Nez Perce National Forest, Elk City has suffered job loss and
population decline with the downturn in the timber industry. Rather than
consider the forest a moribund resource, town leaders did what may be
surprising: they turned to diseased, dead and downed trees as a new source
of prosperity. State and federal land management agencies, tribal
governments and private land owners are partnering with the nonprofit
organization, Framing Our Community (FOC), Inc., to remove ravaged timber
resulting in hazardous fuels reduction and forest restoration. The
long-range vision includes a small business incubator dedicated to creating
value-added products out of the discarded wood. Switching from an
extraction-based economy to a restoration-based economy has created new
jobs for Idaho County, which the Bureau of Economic Analysis had previously
identified as an area with a low income and high unemployment.

For information, please visit this link.

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