Mountain Lake, MN

As most of you know, we have two future squads up and running.  There is an economic squad, if interested give Beth Smith or Rob Anderson a call to get on the email list for upcoming meetings.  There is also a CCC - Cultural, Civic, and Community Engagement - squad.  If interested in this squad please contact Tara Kleven or Gloria McKissick for more information.

We are definitely in the action phase of this program.  The economic squad is working on a mini grant program for new businesses.  And the CCC squad is working on having more representation from the Lao and Hispanic communities at the Heritage Fair, as well as a “Food for Thought” event at the park this summer.  We are also discussing having music playing downtown everyday, and having movies in the park this summer.  I have talked to Sherry P. about working together with ECI and having a children’s movie night in the park.

If you have any ideas on how to make these possible or better, please let someone know.  Also, if you have an idea that is not listed here, let someone know, get involved, come to a meeting, etc….

We also have a Mt Lake blog, that is not being used.  I will forward that site info, as well as some info for an upcoming free seminar.

If you have any questions or concerns, please let me know.  Gloria is setting up a CCC meeting for the end of March, so watch for details.  Thanks everyone!

The date is Dec. 3rd from 7p-8:30p at the Community Center. Free childcare is available. You will need to contact Tara @ 427-8953 if needed.

Our meeting on the 6th went well, but we still need more people to get involved! People had a lot of great ideas, so we prioritized the top three and formed Future Squads. The areas identified were: Community and Cultural Engagement (having community block parties, working together with community Ed doing ESL, or a language exchange, a community lottery, and honest discussion about the impact of the different ethnic groups in our community) Civic Engagement-Leaders Focused on a Collective Future (The local ministerial assoc. would be actively involved in the future development and maintaining of our community, existing officials would invest in a mentoring process that develops the next generation of leaders, new elected leaders - school/city, no one runs unopposed) Economic Growth (EDA more proactive with current businesses, why don’t we have more industries? We have rail line and a major highway, new focus on our current strength of ethnic diversity as an economic assest, utilize the highway to promote Mt. Lake and bring people in, have a shop local program.

We voted on the areas we wanted to focus on, then we split into groups. We will be having a large group meeting coming up shortly. We’re waiting for Extension to set the date. I’ll keep you posted!