The annual United Way of Junction City / Geary County Day of Caring will be on Nov. 2 from 8 a.m. to noon.
Volunteers are invited to lend a hand give elderly resident and disabled home owners assistance with outdoor projects that may need to be done. Volunteers are asked to bring some equipment with them.
Some examples of jobs that may need to be done include mowing and trimming of grass, raking leaves, cleaning gutters, cleaning exterior windows, and changing smoke detector batteries or light bulbs.
For more information or to sign up call Nichole Mader, Executive Director for United Way, at 238-2117 or contact her at 139 East 8th Street, Junction City, 66441, or director@unitedwayjcgc.org
Mandy Fincham and her husband run the Kettle in Beloit, Kansas. Some people think it’s quality-of-life initiatives like their cafe and wine bar make a difference between small towns shirking smartly or withering badly. Chris Neal / For the Kansas News Service
PHILLIPSBURG — The opening of a child care center attracts little notice in a city or suburb.
In rural Kansas, it’s cause for celebration.
The focus on young families, and the hope that represents, is remarkably rare in small towns fighting for survival against forces largely beyond their control.
No matter how scarce, said Iowa State University social scientist Dave Peters, it’s an essential ingredient in what he and his research team refer to as a “shrink smart” town. A place residents remain committed to improving even as it gets smaller.
“Shrink smart communities are those that saw faster than average declines in population but also had above-average gains in quality of life,” Peters said.
Small, rural communities can do little to reverse decades-long population trends, Peters said. But they can improve the quality of life for the people who stay. To start, they need a core group of people determined to confront challenges rather than letting nature take its course.
“That’s really what it takes,” Peters said. “You need a lot of people to step up and take a leadership role. It’s not going to happen otherwise.”
The research from Peters and his team confirms that shrink-smart towns are rare. Only seven of the 99 Iowa communities studied have earned the distinction. Far more common, Peters said, are places where people have all but given up. He said they tend to leave the heavy lifting to small groups of elected officials, whom they’re quick to blame when new problems develop.
“In these declining — or withering — towns, as we like to call them, once there’s a failed project, the community turns nasty,” Peters said. “Then, of course, nobody wants to take the risk of trying to do anything.”
Peters and his team haven’t studied any communities outside of Iowa. So, there are no verifiable “shrink smart” towns in Kansas. Still, some we visited while producing the My Fellow Kansans” podcast appear to have at least some of the qualifying characteristics.
Phillipsburg, for example. It’s a town of about 2,400 in northwest Kansas where a couple of quality-of-life projects appear to be paying dividends.
One initiative addresses an urgent need for quality child care, said Nick Poels, the head of Phillips County’s economic development organization. The community made it a priority at the urging of business leaders, who, Poels said, kept getting the same question when interviewing job candidates: What’s the availability of day care in your community?
The new child care center in Phillipsburg, Kansas. Tired of not having a good answer, the community went to work. A cross-section of residents pitched in to transform an old convenience store into a child care center built to the state’s exacting licensure standards. To help with the costs, they hustled up a grant from the Dane Hansen Foundation, which exists solely to help pay for community improvement projects in 26 northwest Kansas counties.
“It was a no-brainer, we had to do a project like this,” Poels said.
The shortage of available child care is a common problem in rural Kansas. So, it wasn’t surprising when more than a dozen communities dispatched envoys to Phillipsburg in August to inspect the new center and get advice from Poels about how they might build their own.
There are also signs of shrink-smart thinking in Beloit, a community of 3,800 about 80 miles southeast of Phillipsburg. A young couple — B and Mandy Fincham — thought the town needed a place where people could gather for coffee during the day or meet for a glass of wine or craft beer in the evening.
So, Mandy quit her grant-writing job to open the a combination coffee shop, cafe, wine bar and music venue in a renovated building downtown.
“We just thought, we don’t want to be 80 and have regrets,” Mandy Fincham said. “So we decided to try it.”
The Kettle has loyal customers, but it doesn’t make a lot of money. So, the couple and their two children need the salary Fincham earns as an elementary school teacher to make ends meet.
Even so, the Kettle meets the Finchams’ definition of a successful buisness because it fills a need in their community.
“Time and again,” Fincham said, “people have told us we’re a cultural hub.”
Shrink smart towns depend on people like the Finchams and those who mobilized to build the child care center in Phillipsburg.
Too often, said Peters, the rural sociologist, communities fighting for survival overlook those opportunities. Instead, they focus on recruiting that one new business that can deliver dozens — perhaps hundreds — of new, good-paying jobs.
Spending money on incentives and industrial parks, he said, is a “risky strategy” because it precludes investments in quality-of-life initiatives that can be more effective recruitment tools. Communities can thrive more, Peters said, by investing in social needs so that they can sell themselves as good places to live and work.
“They see how progressive your town is,” Peters said. “That positions you better to go after a new firm.”
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Support for this season of “My Fellow Kansans” was provided by the United Methodist Health Ministry Fund, working to improve the health and wholeness of Kansans since 1986 through funding innovative ideas and sparking conversations in the health community.
Jim McLean is the senior correspondent for the Kansas News Service, a collaboration of KCUR, Kansas Public Radio, KMUW and High Plains Public Radio covering health, education and politics. You can reach him on Twitter “https://twitter.com/jmcleanks” or email jim@kcur.org.
The Central National Main Bank in downtown Junction City will be the location from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Wednesday for a Potato Bar fundraiser for the United Way fundraising campaign.
The cost will be $6 for a potato with toppings ranging from chili, nacho cheese and shredded cheese to sour cream, chive, ham, butter, bacon and broccoli. The potatoes are being donated by Tyme Out Lounge.
To attend enter through the northwest doors of the bank at 8th and Washington, and proceed downstairs.
If you are in a hurry you can get your food to go. All proceeds will benefit the Junction City / Geary County United Way.
Jeff Underhill finished fourth in the Kansas Strongest Man competition in Salina on Saturday. Congratulations to Jeff!
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He’s known to many as a member of the Junction City Commission, but Commissioner Jeff Underhill has another focus as well. This Saturday ( Oct. 19 ) he will compete in the Kansas Strongest Man competition in the Driven Fitness Center in Salina.
Underhill has been training for this type of competition for a long time. “I did power lifting for a couple of years. I set a couple of state records, I got tired of doing the same three basic lifts and strong man training seemed a little bit more fun, and it has been.
Underhill explained that there are four separate events within the Strong Man competition. “It has an overhead press medley where you lift a log over your head, an axle, things like that. You also have to carry stones and sand bags and other things. So it’s really going to kind of an endurance thing as well as a strength event.”
Underhill will compete in the Open Super Heavyweight class. He enjoys this type of competition, and traces his beginning interest to the strength training he received in high school. He works out four days with two days a week of stretching and sees a chiropractor a couple of times a week for different treatments.
If he wins the event on Saturday he will be Kansas Strongest Man. “this event is also a United States Strongman sanctioned event so I’ll be qualified for nationals as well. The top three in this event, and another one that I’m competing in in April will qualify me for nationals and that’s in June up in Minneapolis. I’m hope to at least get an invitation to that.”
The competition in Salina Saturday begins at 10 a.m.
The Corps of Engineers have decreased the outflows from Milford Reservoir from 3,000 cubic feet per second to 500 cfs.
The Corps said the decrease is required for them to remain compliant with Phase One flood pool guidance. They have just dropped out of Phase Two.
Substantial releases will require the gauge at Waverly, Misouri to hit 140,000 cfs or less. Currently, Waverly is showing 162,000 cfs. Releases could be bumped back up a bit if inflows increase.
The current Milford Lake elevation is 1163, which is 19-feet above normal pool.
There was a bonfire for a Junction City High School pep rally Thursday evening. It occurred one night before the Blue Jay football was scheduled to play their Senior Night against the Seaman Vikings at Al Simpler Stadium.
The bonfire had been postponed from earlier weeks due to wet weather.
Geary County 4-H Council officers have been elected.
According to the Geary County 4-H news letter they include Rylie Ellis as President, Hanna Miller Vice President, Isabel Guffy Secretary, Josie Strauss Treasurer and Chelsey Armbruster as Reporter.
Four-H council committees for 2019-2020 include Fair BBQ, Fair Board, Finance, Public Revue, 4-H Day, National 4-H Week and Achievement Celebration.
The Junction City Little Theater production of Oklahoma opens Friday Nov. 1 at the C.L. Hoover Opera House at 7:30 p.m.
You can also see the show Saturday, Nov. 2 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, Nov. 3 at 2 p.m., Friday and Saturday Nov. 8 and 9 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday Nov. 10 at 2 p.m.
Set in Western Indian Territory just after the turn of the century, the rivalry between the local farmers and cowboy provides the backdrop for the love story between Curly, a cowboy, and Laurey, a farm girl. As the road to romance and the road to statehood converge, Curly and Laurey are poised to spend their new life together in a brand new state: O-K-L-A-H-O-M-A OKLAHOMA.
Monte Dibben and Kaye Fisher are the directors for the show.
More than 200 invitations were sent to companies to attend the Junction City / Geary County reception at the AUSA convention in Washington D. C. Junction City Area Chamber of Commerce President Mickey Fornaro-Dean estimated nearly 100 more were given to companies on the convention floor the day of the reception.
Fornaro-Dean told a Chamber audience that there was good attendance at the reception. “Very much interested companies that we’ll continue to build relationships with. And this was our second year of that reception so we’re hoping that each year it will continue to grow.” The goal was to attract business interest in Junction City and Geary County.
One of the new companies already recruited earlier to Junction City was Camso Manufacturing USA, Ltd., a manufacturer of agricultural track equipment. Fornaro-Dean said Camso is a supporter of the military. “Because, like over 40% of their employees are retired military. They are a global company with headquarters in Quebec, Canada.
Local businesses are stepping up to support the United Way campaign in Junction City and Geary County. The Business Blitz is under way this week and next.
Executive Director Nichole Mader provided an up-to-date list of donors so far.
The annual United Way of Junction City / Geary County Day of Caring will be on Nov. 2 from 8 a.m. to noon.
