A free prime rib meal was a good way to get 37 people from McHenry County to a meeting at Towner last evening. The NDSU Extension Service & the Bush Foundation partnered to hold Community Conversations with people in ND & SD to talk about state issues that affect our daily lives. They plan 80 sessions across the 2 states with similar discussions in Minnesota.
We were given 9 issues (click to enlarge pictures) & by voting many times we narrowed it down to small group discussions on Demographic Changes & how we can improve this issue. Some ideas that got higher votes were 1. Workforce diversity-train/improve. 2. Recruit young population 3. Improve image of state. 4. Funding infrastructure. Some incentives to attract people to ND are good pay & cheaper housing.
Janice Buchholz, Shirley Nitz, Phyllis Zimmerman, Bill Goodwin & myself attended from Anamoose. Gayle Gette, facilitator from Cando, is traveling ND for the Bush Foundation. Organizers for McHenry County were Callie Johnson &Raquel Dugan-Dibble, McHenry County Extension Agents.
