By BECKY KISER
Hays Post

Designing a strategic plan for the future of Ellis County drew the biggest interest and group during Tuesday night’s meeting of the Strategic Doing Re-Start for Ellis County.

Volunteers gathered at the Rose Garden Banquet Hall in Hays to winnow down the number of project ideas for community improvements generated at a meeting last month.

As attendees enjoyed bierocks and green bean dumpling soup, facilitator Betty Johnson, Lawrence, polled the group for their top topics. Many of the people had been at the first meeting and others were there for the first time.

The voting yielded eight more areas of interest.

• More after-school activities for middle and high school students
• Decreased domestic violence and human trafficking
• Increased volunteerism in Ellis County
• Reaching out with help and understanding of mental health and anxiety
• More childcare providers
• Improved cultural diversity
• A multi-generational center
• Mentoring young entrepreneurs.

The nine groups spent more than two hours talking about what they could do. Discussions began with broad suggestions and then narrowed to specific action items with deadlines.

A spokesperson from each group explained the purpose of their project and the plan to move it forward.

“Our next steps through April of 2020 is to create a visioning process,” said Henry Schwaller, referring to the Ellis County strategic plan. “It will begin with a large meeting to get as many (residents) to the table as possible to tell us what they want this community to look like over the next five years.”

A much smaller group of three people is working on providing fun hands-on STEM learning projects after school for students in sixth grade through high school.

Many students participate in sports after school, but there’s a gap in other activities, according to the group, and they want to help fill the void.

“We want to ask kids if they’d rather learn how to build a video game instead of just playing them,” said Alan Wamser. As the IT manager at HaysMed, Wamser has a vested interest in the project.

“If we can get a college intern with IT experience and bring them in, they’re the most successful,” he said.

“And kids love to make YouTube videos and podcasts,” added group member Amanda Legleiter

The career exploration opportunities would involve teaching by local IT professionals as well as students and instructors at Fort Hays State University and NCK Tech.

“It could be similar to 4-H with the older kids or students teaching the younger ones,” Legleiter said.

“With mentoring, the kids may go on to FHSU to major in computer science or graphic design,” said the group’s spokesman, Shae Veach, HaysMed vice president of regional operations. “STEM activities can lead to scholarships, empower these students with confidence and possible local careers.”

The trio also tossed around ideas for funding and sustainability of the program as well as who will be stakeholders.

The group interested in mental health issues is working on “Can We Just Talk?,” bringing together people who are willing to listen and people who need to talk about their problems.

Kansas has had a record number of domestic-related homicides, according to Shaelin Sweet, community advocate for Options, who spoke for the group wanting to curtail domestic violence and human trafficking.

“That’s not a record we want to be breaking. The ultimate goal is for domestic homicides to go down and that will happen through education of law enforcement in the community,” she said.

Hays Police Chief Don Scheibler is a member of the group.

Strategic Doing is coordinated by the Heartland Community Foundation of Ellis, Trego and Russell counties with a grant from the  Dane G. Hansen Foundation in Logan.

“I’m walking around this room and the focus in these groups is just amazing to me,” said Sandy Jacobs, HCF executive director. “We want to be all the resource to you we can. If you need help finding meeting sites, if you need help getting information out, anything you need just call our office.”

By 8:30 p.m. each table had talked through and filled out a Strategic Doing Action Pack from Purdue. The university’s Agile Strategy Lab offers training and certification in Strategic Doing.

According the to university’s website, Strategic Doing enables people to form action-oriented collaborations quickly, move them toward measurable outcomes, and make adjustments along the way.

Johnson is a certified facilitator in the Strategic Doing process.

“It’s been tried and proved. It’s used globally. We have used it in so many large, large operations as well as small,” she told the crowd. Johnson’s position is funded by the Hansen Foundation.

Erin Hughes was hired in June as a part-time assistant to Jacobs. Hughes will compile information completed by the groups. The results will be presented and project work updated at the next Strategic Doing meeting six months from now.

In the meantime, the nine groups are to meet every 30 days or so to review their progress.

Jacobs also encouraged the groups to invite other Ellis County residents to join their causes.

“If you know people that want to get involved after you begin talking about it in the community, for goodness sake, bring them into your group and get it started,” she urged.

“That’s how these things grow and win.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By CRISTINA JANNEY

Hays Post

Students from Hays High volunteered Tuesday night for the annual Trick-Or-Treat So Others Can Eat because they know what it means to be in need.

Mercedes Nuss, a HHS senior, said when she lived with her mother, her family regularly came to Community Assistance Center for food. The family also received help during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.

“It helped out a lot because we didn’t have the money to provide for our family like we wish we would have,” she said. “They helped us a lot, so it feels good to pay it forward and help others who are in the situation I was when I was a kid.”

Nuss collected food door to door for the CAC with fellow students in the HHS JAG-K program. JAG-K helps students who have risk factors that could contribute to them not graduating from high school.

“It is really comforting to know that people care about it as much as they do,” Nuss said of the food drive. “I know when I was a kid, it helped out a lot. It meant a lot to me and my family.”

JAG-K sophomore Ashton Herrman’s family also used a food bank when he was younger.

He said he volunteered, “because we lived in Colby, and we were really poor. We had to go to a friend’s house for hot water. We did [use the food bank]. Now that we are doing better with money, I feel it should be my job, because I have been through it to know how much this helps people.”

“This place is really beautiful. I am really glad the community cares for this. It just warms my heart.”

Twenty-seven organizations collected food across the city. Some of these included Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, 4-H, FHSU groups and church groups. HHS DECA students, Lions Club, CAC volunteers and church group volunteers helped sort food at the CAC.

Theresa Hill, CAC co-director, said the pre-Halloween food drive is the largest donation event of the year. The food bank shelves were bare leading up to the event, and the center was using monetary donations to fill food needs.

The CAC serves about 5,500 people annually. Between 80 and 100 families receive food from the CAC monthly.

Last year the food drive brought in about 16,000 food items. Organizers were hoping for about 20,000 items this year. The CAC also accepts cash donations during the event.

Shaina Prough is the sponsor for HHS DECA, which helps organize the event. She said Tuesday night collections were looking good. Warm weather seemed to be aiding in collection.

53-year-old Bonnie Werth’s involvement with TOTSOCE goes back to the beginning of the event in 1983, when she and her sister, Connie Haselhorst, began collecting food. The sisters helped make the school-sponsored event through DECA in 1985.

As the food cans clanked and piles of incoming food grew, Werth said watching the event was an “Aha moment.”

“This has really grown to be more than just people from the high school doing it,” she said. “They are seeing the need for having canned good and how it is really benefiting a lot of needy families and people who need help.

“It makes me teary-eyed. It makes me excited to know a lot of people benefit from something that started small and got larger.”

Not only has Werth been participating since the program’s inceptions, she is passing on a passion for giving and volunteerism to younger generations through 4-H and her grandchildren. She collected Tuesday with the Big Creek Astro 4-H Club.

“Giving of your time is what is most important—selflessness,” she said, “and teaching them sometimes we need to take time out of our day, even if it busy, to give something to somebody else.”

She added, “I am just in awe of how many volunteers help now with getting the canned goods moved for the Community Assistance Center.”

The CAC will continue to receive food through this week, so Hill said she didn’t anticipate having a total on food collected through the event until Monday. The CAC hopes the food collected this week will last until the next major food drive sponsored by mail carriers over the Mother’s Day weekend. The food collected during TOTSOCE is also used in the CAC’s annual holiday food baskets.