White Sulphur Springs, MT

Through the Study Circles process, the discussion of “what poverty looks like here” centered around a lack of hope - which is reflected in a lack of pride in both personal property and in the community.  Obviously, stimulating the economy and actually changing the financial structure of the community is necessary to provide fiscal resources to families in poverty, but the community felt that much could be done to address the attitude of poverty if we were able to create pride in White Sulphur.  Community beautification and clean up became a strong focus of the Horizons process, as the physical demonstration of pride is reflected in our streets and buildings.

Mammoth efforts have been made to recruit diverse groups of people to develop action plans and to move efforts forward.  Recognizing that one in two people in the community are living in poverty has helped leadership groups in the community to realize that strategies for implementation need to be very grassroots in nature and need to be sustainable without burdening already stressed financial resources in the community.