2011 MN Community Pride Showcase Winners
For Immediate Release
August 31, 2011
InCommons, MinnPost.com and the Minnesota State Fair announce the 2011 Minnesota Community Pride Showcase winners, including Rochester’s Beyond The Yellow Ribbon Southeast Minnesota and RNeighbors, the Rochester Neighborhood Resource Center.
Both organization’s winning entries were chosen to receive one of thirty 2011 Minnesota Community Pride Showcase awards.
The award goes to selected organizations that are helping their communities to move beyond current economic challenges with creative and proactive community and economic development innovations. The Citizens League and the Showcase’s Community Panel of Judges made the selection after reviewing individual submissions from community groups.
Each of the 30 Showcase winners will receive $500 from the Minnesota State Fair, exhibit space to share their project, and will be formally recognized at Community Pride Day at the Fair on Saturday, September 3, 2011.
Beyond the Yellow Ribbon is a grassroots organization, created by Rochester area volunteers to provide community support to Military service members and their families experiencing deployment to a combat zone. Established in 2009, the organization was one of the first to be designated by the Minnesota National Guard and the Governor as part of a network across the state. The local group serves the Rochester and Southeast Minnesota area and has Family Service Rochester and Rochester Community and Technical College provide in-kind services and host the local efforts.
Within the Rochester and southeast Minnesota area, there are over 700 military personnel and 1000 military children (Active Duty, National Guard and Reserves from all 5 uniformed branches of service) living in this region. The current deployment of up to 2700 Minnesota National Guard to support the combat missions in Afghanistan and Iraq, increases the need for very active support services at the community level for the military families and children in our midst. This is the mission of BTYRSEMN.
Created by a Mayor’s Advisory Council in 2001, RNeighbors is a resource to Rochester neighborhoods so they can tackle issues, both small and large, working together with City Council and City departments. One staff person, a volunteer board of 18 Directors, volunteer web and technology folks, and most importantly, neighborhood leaders, make up the organization that is RNeighbors. Grassroots efforts take time, perseverance, the ability to adapt, and most importantly, the power of people, Rochester’s amazing volunteers.
RNeighbors’ partners with other local non-profits, service groups, businesses, the county and the city to bring people together. The RNeighbors Board of Directors has representatives from neighborhoods, as well as representatives from the City Council, County Board, IBM, Mayo Clinic, as well as several nonprofits. A long-standing partner in all of our efforts is the Olmsted County Youth Commission. In addition to supporting the work of individual neighborhood associations, RNeighbors coordinates city wide activities focused on community tree planting and street murals, bringing art to our streets and neighborhoods.
InCommons is a new and growing community-based initiative that connects Minnesotans – face-to-face and online – so they can find and share credible tools, knowledge and resources to solve problems. It’s based on the idea that lessons learned in one community become starting points for communities and individuals addressing similar issues in other towns and cities in Minnesota. InCommons hopes to bring this idea to life through community gatherings and online sharing of resources and solutions.
InCommons’ mission is to inspire and support the courageous leadership necessary to engage communities and solve problems. InCommons provides a guiding set of values that nurture a new way of working together: Listening, co-creating, local, get and give, diversity, safety, transparency, respect, collaboration and action.
For more information, please contact the Minnesota Community Pride Showcase Coordinators directly: By phone: 612.520.1756; or, by email: info@InCommons.org
Specific entry information for BTYRSEMN and RNeighbors.
BTYRSEMN Contact: Kenn Roehl, Committee Chair 507-993-0815
RNeighbors Contact: René Jones Lafflam, Executive Director 507-244-0451
###
Have a comment? Join us on Facebook!