Caledonia Argus

Houston County Collaborative receives grant

Posted: 10/21/03

By Shannon McKinney
Argus News Reporter

Houston Countyís involvement with its littlest patrons received recognition Tuesday, October 14 from the Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation (SMIF). The group is awarding the Houston County Collaborative a grant for planning and implementing new programming.

Houston County was one of two communities out of six applicants that was chosen to receive the $20,000 grant. Four more applicants will be chosen from this 20 county region, said Rae Jean Hansen of SMIF. At the end of two years, Minnesota will have 36 communities that will be awarded these grants. A community, according to SMIF, is described as a county or a town.

Already $5,000 of the grant has been awarded to Houston County for preliminary planning of how to use the remaining $15,000. The SMIF is also providing professional facilitators to assist with the planning process.

Suzy Meneguzzo, a professional facilitator of the SMIF, explained that this community was chosen because of communication between organizations already set in place that make it very ready to benefit from community based planning. The Houston County Family Services Collaborative is responsible for this kind of networking.

ìThey have shown us that there are already wonderful things happening and we can build on them for our children,î explained Meneguzzo.

A dozen or so persons involved in the field of early childhood development and education attended the meeting.

Meneguzzo explained to the audience that they will be following a six step plan over the next six months to develop a program and then spend up to a year implementing it.

Information that is gathered during and after the process will be used by the SMIF to raise awareness and support the effectiveness and importance of early childhood care and education.

This information will also have an impact on changing public and private practices and policies on early childhood care and education. The goal is to ensure that all children are ready to succeed when they enter kindergarten.

How a child performs in kindergarten has a big impact on the rest of their life, said Meneguzzo.

ìWe need to address the needs of our children on an individual level. These are the folks who are going to be taking care of you when youíre in a nursing home,î she said.

Currently, Houston County has many opportunities in place to benefit young children. Director of Community Education Service in Houston Schools Marilyn Frauenkron Bayer read a lengthy list of programs available to children in Houston County.

Building a community coalition is the first step

The audience began the first step in the process by writing down names of people they knew who could become a part of the community coalition.

Remaining true to the process is key to discovering how Houston County will spend its grant money.

People representing twenty sectors of the community will be recruited to compose the coalition. Some of the sectors include parents, K-12 education, businesses, faith community, local government and housing.

ìOur concern is that we have these voices represented,î said Meneguzzo.

The next five steps include: conducting a community profile to gather information on early childhood issues specific to each community; sharing the results of the community profile; hosting a ìSpeak-outî for early childhood-community forum; creating a community vision; and developing an action plan and implementing the plan.

The next meeting is scheduled in Houston for Wednesday, November 12.

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