Estelline, SD

Even after the frost, the Lister Donley Memorial Garden is still a colorful place.  Flowers and fruit and plenty of colorful foliage yet.  The pumpkin patch is turning shades of orange in interesting ways!   Beyond to the east is another private pumpkin patch worth peering over the fence at.  — WOW –  Good work gardeners.

Childrens’ garden cleanup will happen Wednesday, September 24th.  Participants who care to harvest any of their produce should remove the material before the plastic is lifted.

General garden cleanup will be complete before the first weekend in October .  Stakes, large stones,  farm site junk finds, and other material dangerous to people and tillage equipment must be put in the junk pile;  unchopped plant material can go into the compost heap — both sites are in the southeast corner of the garden.   Harvey Donley will remind folks with materials remaining after Oct 1st.

Harvey indicates the current plots and some new ones  will be available in 2009, first choice for returning gardeners and later open to the community.   It is worth doing fall control on the perennial weeds.  Harvey plans to fertilize and till this fall.

The monthly meeting for Horizons was held on September 16th at Trails Edge. 

The Farmers Market is starting to wind down for the year.  There may still be a couple of vendors selling over the next month.  Turn out of vendors and the community as been great for the 1st year. 

Ideas and places for an after school program continue to be explored and researched. 

Mural on Wards Store is up, take a look. 

Food Pantry is in need of a Food Drive.  Tenatively scheduled for Sunday October 12th will be “Horse Ride-Food Drive”, a food drive in Estelline combining the Estelline High School Honor Soceity, local food pantry and local Horse owners who will be giving rides not only to the works by any community members who would like a ride.  Watch for more info to come and support our local food pantry with any donations you can make. 

Outdoor movies are done for the year, but look for some indoor movies come winter time. 

Frisbee Golf course is moving ahead with High School students working on a design and additional fund raising for a course that will be in City Park for all to use. 

Discussion held on how to raise funding going forward to keep our great organization going forward for our community. 

Next meeting will be on October 21st at 6:30 at Trails Edge.  All are welcome to attend and participate.

The Estelline mural, sponsored by the SD Arts Council and several donations is complete. It has already been installed on the south side of Wards Store. It took about 10 days and several young helpers to complete it.

An meeting to start a South Dakota “Buy Fresh Buy Local” chapter will be held Aug. 12 in Brookings.

The South Dakota Specialty Producers Association and the South Dakota Cooperative Extension Service are sponsoring the event. It begins at 7 p.m. at the Brookings County Extension office, located at the Swiftel Center, 824 32nd Ave., Brookings.

The meeting will introduce producers and consumers to the “Buy Fresh Buy Local” campaign. It is a national program to increase both the awareness and purchase of locally produced food and specialty food products.

Food, food service, health care, food production, and rural economic development businesses and individuals are encouraged to attend the event.

 Call Patrick Garrity, (605) 660-1034, for information, or e-mail him at garrity@iw.net

We will be using the bulletin board like space as the scheduling and update site until blog access becomes available to the community.  Please pass the word and put notices on the blog if you have something you want posted from inside the window.  Sign up sheets and other pieces placed outside, please avoid covering the window contents.

June 23 7p.m. Estelline School Lunch Room there will a community meeting to discuss the possiblities of an After School/Summer Youth Program.  Childcare will be available.  If you feel there is someone who may be interested in this project please contact them and ask them to attend this community meeting.

Coming to a park near you, MOVIES!  Estelline Horizon has partnered with the Estelline Area Economic Development to purchase a 16 by 9 foot inflatable movie screen and system.  Plans are currently underway to have free summer time movies in the park.  If you would like to help with this great outreach project, help is needed to work concessions and with the setup and takedown of the system.  Contact David Ebbers at 873-2261, 886-8786 or davide@reliabank.com.  Let hear back as to ideas for movies and other uses or places and events for the equipment. 

The Northwest Area Foundation conference I attended in MN was non-stop education!  Many partners in addressing poverty were there, my favorite speaker about poverty was Tom Vilsack, the former governor of Iowa.  The number one speaker about strategy, Chip Heath (author of the book Make it Stick , which I brought home to share), explained making messages memorable and motivating.   Peter S  from Community Reinvestment Association of North Carolina was most entertaining and effective with programs making financial issues riveting; their TV production Nuevo Barrio could be a great asset locally.

Lots of things I can hardly wait to tell you about, including their endorsements of local foods, and many fund-raising ideas.  The amusing byproduct of registration enmass by SDSU for everyone in SD was that Estelline was hometown on all our nametags…would that this little town had that many interested volunteers……