Harlowton, MT

Our goal is Fall 2008 Preschool Enrollment

Wheatland Memorial Hospital, Harlowton Schools and Central Montana Head Start are working on a plan to bring Head Start to Wheatland County.  The group is working diligently for a fall 2008 enrollment.  Hillcrest Elementary is working on finding a space, Wheatland Memorial Healthcare is working to provide the healthcare needs and Head Start will provide the teacher for the preschool.  Together we can make sure that all the preschool age children in Wheatland County have access to preschool and get off on the best foot!

Head Start is a comprehensive child development program that has served low-income families since 1965.  These child-focused programs serve children birth to 5 years of age, pregnant women, and their families with the goal of increasing school readiness of children from low-income families.  Head Start provides a range of individualized services in the areas of education and early childhood development; medical, dental, and mental health; nutrition; and parent involvement which are responsive and appropriate to each child’s and family’s developmental, ethnic, cultural, and linguistic heritage and experience. 

Through a partnership between the Wheatland County Sheriff’s Office and Horizon’s , there will be two youth representatives at this year’s 10^th National UDETC Leadership Conference.  The conference offers an adult track and a youth track.  The Sheriff’s Office sends two adult representatives each year as part of an Enforcing Underage Drinking Laws grant.  The Sheriff’s Office was only going to be able to send one youth to this year’s event, but through the partnership, now the community will benefit from two attending.  This year’s conference is being held in Nashville, Tennessee.

The two youth will participate in networking and educational opportunities.  The youth track is centered around developing and maintaining youth run programs to help reduce underage drinking.  The youth are given assignments and topics to speak on.  The program assists in developing youth in the areas of public speaking and leadership.  This aids a community by providing training to already strong youth in successful ways of implementing programs.  The first youth networking event will be on Wednesday, August 20^th, this event will introduce the youth participants to what is expected of them, how the conference is organized and a general social event.  Over the next three days, the youth will be kept busy from nine-o’clock in the morning until nine-o’clock at night.  The information that is crammed into these days can help leaders of tomorrow, be leaders today.

Through the Rural Communities conference I was informed of the Wired Grant to help with educating Eastern Montana Manufacturers.  After submitting an application to the Montana Manufacturers Extension Center I was enrolled in the Boot Coffee Roast Profiling & Cupping course.  The WIRED program paid for the course and airline tickets for me to go to San Francisco to attend this course.  This has been a course that I have wanted to attend for years and have not been able to afford.  This course has greatly improved my roasting skills which will allow us to be more competitive industry and so far it looks like we will be able to add more employees with the additional sales we believe will be attainable with our increased knowledge. Submitted by:Ian ReedOwner, Snowy Mountain Coffee

The e-commerce training session offered through our local Horizons program was of great benefit.The most frequent statement heard afterward from those of us attending was, another couple days of training would have been nice. They covered the basics of simple web design using free tools provided by google, which would transfer over to the free templates used by most hosting providers, so if you had never done any web design before this would have been informative, though a bit over- whelming at times without proper notes and good review for those of us who have messed with web sites.Great benefit came out of listening to what makes good design, how to track the traffic your site receives by using behind the scene tools that Google provides free of charge and the best part was listening to professionals that are using e-commerce to grow their businesses.

A program designed to encourage fitness and healthy eating habits among elementary and junior high aged youth began mid-March with 96 students participating. Judith Gap had two teams, 30 students total, Hillcrest Elementary had five teams, 54 students total and Harlowton “Chill Zone” was represented by a team of 12 students.

The youth were asked to keep a chart of activities and the number of hours of exercise they completed on a weekly basis for the 2-month program. The structure and execution of the compilation of charting failed, yet the youth were enthusiastic about all activities they now labeled as exercise and came to understand the concept related to good health.

Bringing the program to a successful ending evolved through a conversation with a brother and sister(ages 8 & 10), who thought having a “Bicycle Rally” would be a wonderful event! Judith Gap youth were unable to attend due to the mileage distance. The rally took place Saturday, May 17 at the Youth Center with 26 youth participating and 9 adults volunteering to accompany the youth on their ride to Chief Joseph’s Park on their bicycles, scooters, tricycles or anything with wheels. The event involved decorating individual bicycles with streamers, ribbons, pipe cleaners, playing cards for sound effects, etc., a bicycle safety course instructed by the Harlowton Sheriff’s Department, a safe bike route from the Youth Center to Chief Joseph’s Park with volunteers not normally involved providing supervision, and a healthy snack consisting of a wide variety of fresh vegetables and fruit and clean water. The healthy snack was a huge success enjoyed by all the youth and volunteers!

Through partnering with Hillcrest Elementary, Partnership For Youth, AmeriCorps Vista, and Horizons, Wheatland County Fit Kids program ended on a positive and successful note. Youth are continuing to ask if we are going to do “Fit Kids” when school begins. My answer is alway YES!!! Charting results of physical activity is in the revision stages for Fall 2008.

Larry Steuben, owner of Snowy Mountain Trading Post, has generously provided the community of Harlowton with a plot of land to cultivate into a garden that will serve a diverse group of the town.

Through use of the local newspaper, word of mouth, posters on community bulletin boards, windows of local businesses and fliers distributed within neighborhoods, word is spreading about the Harlowton’s Community Garden. There will be weekly activities revolving around the garden throughout the summer, starting on Thursday, July 10 at 7:15pm. The theme of the first activity will be rhubarb,  involving an educational piece on the dangers of ingesting the leaf, what rhubarb tastes like fresh from the garden and a number of ways to prepare rhubarb. A sampling of prepared recipes will be enjoyed by all that attend.

Groups and individuals have come forward to participate in the growth of the garden, such as H.A.P.Y. (Harlowton Advantage Program for Youth) who came to plant the garden with over 40 youth in attendance. Some of these children had never worked in a garden. Questions arise as the children see me in their neighborhoods; “are the plants growing yet?” or “when can we eat the tomatoes?” The concept of food growing out of the ground is new to many of Harlowton’s youth.

Senior citizens are enjoying participating in the community garden with such comments as: “we have moved to a home that has no space for a garden”, “we enjoy being outdoors and being useful” or something as simple as, “what a wonderful idea”.

Volunteers have come forward from all walks of life represented in Harlowton, especially those who have never volunteered before. I imagine the list of helpers will continue to grow as does the needs and care of the garden.

The garden is built around the idea of growing a community and what better place to grow a community than around a garden.

Please join in making Harlowton’s Community Garden a place where community grows together and learns!

Laughing Yoga has come to Harlowton through a partnership with the Wheatland Memorial Healthcare, Adult Education and Hillcrest Elementary. Adrie Min, physical therapist at Wheatland Memorial, is leading participants through gentle breathing techniques, stretching exercises and laughter.

Classes are available, free, to anyone in the community and meet on a weekly basis, Tuesday evenings, 5:30-6:30pm at Hillcrest Elementary. With all the busy schedules of summertime, classes will resume when schools are back in session mid-August.

Laughing Yoga is something anyone can do!!! There are no age barriers, no socio-economic barriers, no barriers period. The only requirement is the ability to laugh. Classes have a contagious element and bring you back wanting more of that calm and peaceful sensation. Tools that enable us to relieve stresses from our everyday lives helps to create a more peaceful home life, interactions with others can begin with a smile and a sense of wellness is just a laugh away.

Please join in and bring a friend or two for Laughing Yoga classes with Adrie Min.

Eureka! Winning Ways Worksession:  Cream of the West was one of the first agriculture-based companies selected to participate in the Eureka! Winning Ways process/training in Junert.  During the process, the CREAM OF THE WEST TEAM generated over 35 ideas for ways to grow our company.  We’re now in Stage 2 of being coached through the feasibility and implementation of our  ’top priority’ idea.  ThIs is just one of the excellent trainings we’ve been involved with this spring and summer.   I can’t give enough KUDOS for the direct assistance, the excellent training, and the constant flow of information  that I’ve received from the Montana network of assistance — which includes the Dept. of Agriculture, MMEC, Dept. of Commerce, W.I.R.E.D., Central Montana BEAR (Dept. of Labor) and the MT Extension Service/Horizons.  Each one worked together and/or separately to provide our company with information, expertise, training, funding assistance or all of the above.  I commend the people in these agencies for working so hard to help small Montana businesses grow.  Thank you!  THANK YOU!!!  Alicia Moe, Owner, CREAM OF THE WEST 

I am extremely thankful to Horizons for making me aware of the ‘e-Commerce’ training in Bozeman.  It was one of the VERY BEST training sessions I’ve attended in a long time — and I’ve gone to many.  The ideas presented were worthwhile and practical and the presenter was extremely knowledgeable plus engaging.  I just wish it would be offered again soon so I could go through it all again.  For a non-techie, it’s a lot to absorb but worth every minute.  Thanks again, Mandie and Company!  Alicia Moe, CREAM OF THE WEST

Adult Mentors for Youth with Community Service 

Coleen Smith volunteered to be chair for the committee working on designing a program to find adult mentors to partner with at risk youth.  She has already laid the foundation for the program and is ready to begin accepting volunteers.  This program would partner a willing, qualified adult with a youth who has received community service and is in need of additional support to complete their community service hours.  The adults will assist the youth by providing support and coaching to the youth while they are completing their sentence.  Many at risk youth lack the family support needed to help them successfully complete their community service hours and this program will assist them in fulfilling their requirements, as well as create a connection with an adult in the community who cares about the youth and will support them in making positive choices in the future.