Scotland, SD

Committee Goal: To help those unable to do so for themselves in beautifying their yards for spring. Our target area of people to help was those physically/financially unable to do so for themselves, the elderly and disabled.

One of first five people to become involved with the Horizons II project for Scotland has taken out a petition for Mayor of Scotland. The election will be held April 8. Although he did not take Leadership Plenty through the Horizons project, he did take Leadership Plenty the previous year when 12 community members were involved with that project. Between the two Leadership Plenty classes, the Scotland community has seen some members of the younger generation of citizens get involved with the Horizons Program and have been working hard with the Youth Club project. If it hadn’t been for the Horizon’s project and their allocation of funds, I’m not sure if this project would have ever gotten off the ground. I do know however, that because of the structure of this program that is why many of Scotland’s projects are as far along to completion as they are right now.

The community of Scotland has had a number of programs in place to aid the needy for quite some time. The Food Pantry housed at the UCC Church sees a great may patrons. Various community organizations assist in collecting goods for the Pantry. Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts and our churches hold food collection drives. Our local Chapter AE, P.E.O. donated $250.00 as their Christmas philanthropic gift.

The Scotland Life Enrichment for the Elderly has a large collection of wheelchairs, walkers and about every kind of medical equipment on hand. Anything they have can be used by anyone in need for any length of time and at no charge.
Our volunteer transport group is ready to drive anyone unable to take care of their own transportation.

My project is the Good Stuff household furniture, bedding, small appliance. etc. collection to be shared with anyone in need. (no fee involved) The director of the Scotland Food Pantry, Rev. Neumeister and I are working on finding a location in Scotland to combine both projects. We feel that the families who come to the Food Pantry would possibly be interested in taking home some of the household goods to be shared. In order to keep this project up and running for a long time, I want to find unused space in an existing facility which would be donated rent free for the Food Pantry and Good Stuff. Good Stuff is currently quite successful in an unheated vacant store. In order to combine the Food Pantry in the facility it would be necessary to have heat. We are hoping to find such a donated facility as soon as possible.

Our Horizons committees are probably not an exact demographic portrait of Scotland as we have a very large elderly population. However, we do have members who correspond to all of the age and financial segments of our community. The Horizons program has found new leaders who have not previously been a part of local service organizations and through their encouragement we are expecting success in all of our endeavors.

With our projects currently in place to help the needy and the help and promotion received through the Horizons staff with projects in progress to improve our community, we are excited about the future of Scotland.

The community foundation committee is working on setting up a meeting with the South Dakota Community Foundation to establish the Scotland Community Foundation. Board of directors have been identified and now the initial meeting needs to be set. Dates for the initial meeting will be worked on.

The beautification committee will need to meet before the February 27th meeting to bring a plan of action in helping residents with cleanup efforts during the citywide cleanup held in April. Anyone needing help with cleaning up their yards or getting rid of old furniture should contact the city finance officer at 583-2320. This way the volunteers will know what they need in the way of equipment and manpower.

It’s funny, but after some of the community members took Leadership Plenty, they saw that the Horizon’s project was just what this community needed. Some of the people stepped up to the plate and have taken this experience and used it to develop their plans for the boys and girls club, the Good Stuff project and the newcomers project. Others took off, but are now stalmated and will need to get revitalized and pumped up to see their goals and efforts come through.

The Horizon’s group that is working on the Youth Center/Boys and Girls Club held a Harvest of Soups December 15 over the noon hour. Erin Odens gave a presentation about the findings and survey results they gathered with their work on the youth center. The group has traveled to Avon and Tyndall looking at their facilities and trying to determine what would be best for the Scotland community. It was suggested that they may be a little bit of a combination of the two.
Businesses were asked to donate soup for the cause. There were 18 crock pots of soup with just about that many different kind of soups to choose from. For their first venture, the group did very well receiving about $1000 in freewill donations. It was decided that this type of fund raiser may be done again in the early spring.
It was a learning experience for the group and more results will be seen in the near future!