Our journey to becoming The Little Town That Could began in 2006 with our High School becoming the smallest school to ever become the Class C Basketball Champs. The frenzy was contagious we knew we had a spirit that had to be capitalized on.
We decided to hold a celebration to share our small town way of life. The first Melstone Mania was held in August of 2006. This was a town event that included the annual Splash Bash, Wagon Rides, Garage Sale, Petting Zoo and Kids games finishing up with a Karaoke Dance. With much success we celebrated.
Not knowing what to do next we just waited to see what would happen. We were contacted about the Horizon project and sent 8 people to Billings to a facilitator training. We then started the Horizons process which has turned out to be very beneficial. We started with a community dinner attended by 56 with 48 signing up for the study circles.
A Study Circle is a small group of residents talking about what the strengths of the community are and how we use those strengths to alleviate poverty. After meeting 6
Times we held a community dinner to see what each group came up with. We had 4 study circles 8 facilitators and 36 members. We identified 5 major area that we needed to address 1 being Beautification, 2 Melstone Area Chamber, 3 Renovation & Maintenance, 4 New Business and 5 Teen Center.
The first thing we could do was improve the aesthetics of the community we started with the first of many community pride days aka clean up days we were successful in getting several abandoned cars removed and tons of scrape metal removed. We were also able to purchase flower boxes and barrels to place around town with a community action grant provide thru Horizons. At the completion of this we had a set back with the Father’s Day Hail Storm. This but a damper on many plans and thing took a turn. We now had a new vision. We needed to help those who needed immediate help and we did what we could and are still looking to do some more. Montana Community Foundation was in the process of processing a $500 community action grant and they increased it to $2000 to let us do what we felt we could. This committee also applied for and received a $3000 grant from Musselshell Valley Community Foundation for a Beautification project. This will include a Community Garden, Farmer’s Market, Canopy over a public picnic table along with a tree program to get more trees planted around town.
We also decided that we needed a center hub in the form of a Chamber Group to be the central group for all other small groups. This has been started and we are in the process of attaining our own 501c3 Status. We just held a membership dinner in March and now have 26 paid members. We meet monthly to take care of business and keep things moving ahead. Our next meeting is Monday April 28th .
The largest project that has come from this is our Teen center. It is being housed in our community center with top of the line equipment from Pool Tables to Big Screen TV everything a kid could want. This is open at various hours that work for the kids all staff is being manned by volunteers. They even have their own concessions., Close to $20000 has been raised through donations to make this happen. The kids have responded favorably to this.
We also formed a maintaince and renovation committee to take care of our community center and to look at what we had available in the housing arena. We have painted the inside of the building and are looking into new windows and upgrading the kitchen to a
commercial grade so that it could be used by community members for food based businesses.
We also have a new business committee that is working on The Lazy JC Co-Op and into the possibility of have a Small Business Incubator and Area Grants Library. We feel by providing the administrative and technical assistance to area residents we can help them develop their own businesses to help to alleviate poverty within the area. We hope to have this available to all people within the whole Musselshell Valley.
We have since formed A Events Committee that is currently working on the 100th Anniversary to be held in June, they hosted the Membership dinner and will be planning the 3rd Annual Melstone Mania.
After identifying and implementing these committees we held a series of nine Leadership Plenty classes. This training was provided by Horizons, it taught effective leadership skills. We had 32 people complete this training. I feel this was excellent training and can see many differences in leadership styles.
Upon the completion of many thresholds we were eligible for a $7000 sustainability grant. With this money we were able to apply to be a VISTA site and have been approved. This person will be able to work in the Chamber Office and be a visible person in the community working on our goals. We were also able to purchase office equipment such as a Laptop computer for the office along with a printer. We also have worked with the city office to provide wireless internet into the community center to be used by all residents no charge. We have also purchase 3 other laptops to be used by the Teen Center and are available to be used by residents.
In October we held a visioning evening and kids carnival. This was a time to look at where we’ve been and where do we want to go. This was the time we decided we are
The Little Town that Could. We can be what ever we want to and that is a thriving community.
Since being involved in this process we have had several community members attend many different workshops and seminars on Rural Community Development. Including
The Rural Community Conference, Asset Based Community Development, Bootstrapping Montana, will be attending a Ecommerce Training in Bozeman and The Grassroots and Groundwork’s seminar in MPLS at the end of May.
I really feel the training and opportunities that the Horizons Project has provided us with is and will continue to make a difference that will have a huge impact on our community.
Tammy Brewer
Horizons Community Coordinator and Melstone Area Chamber President