Editorial

Emerging Leadership program aims to widen sense of community

A few years ago the history professor and author Joe Amato wrote some books exploring the changes that have happened to rural Minnesota.

In one of those books, the "Decline of Rural Minnesota," Amato wrote that one reason for the tough times on the prairie has been that fewer and fever small-leaders have emerged. Because those numbers have fallen, the burden of leadership keeps landing on the same group of people--eventually burning them out.

In another book," A Community of Strangers," Amato wrote about the population in Marshall, a city that, he said, has constant and high turnover in a big part of its demographics--leading to an ever-revolving door of people who don't really know the community or their neighbors.

But there have been efforts to change both of those aspects. Marshall's Chamber of Commerce runs an annual leadership academy, working to expose new residents to various aspects of the community.

And more quietly, in recent months, an effort by Marshall's Minority Advocacy group and the city's Community Services Department has been aimed at finding emerging leaders among minorities.

So far, it's working. And today, another important step in that effort is scheduled to take place when members of Marshall's Emerging Leadership Investment Program meet with representatives of the Neighborhood House of St. Paul.

The Neighborhood House, soon to be renamed the Paul and Sheila Wellstone Community Center, has a similar mission to Marshall's ELIP.

The groups have met before, but always in St. Paul. Today's meeting, weather-permitting, is scheduled to be in Marshall.

"We wanted them to see what (Marshall is doing)," Community Services Director Harry Weilage said.

What Marshall is doing is ambitious.

With the ELIP fueled by grants, it has been able to touch on everything from bringing more minorities into the community decision-making process to building ties to literacy programs at Adult Basic Education to helping schools deal with language issues and, even, the No Child Left Behind education mandates.

Talented new leaders are emerging, thanks to Gustavo Estrada of the Minority Advocacy group, who has been the point person on much of the building of the program. Leaders who can speak for minority and new immigrant populations, leaders who can bring those segments into the larger community--and vice-versa, too.

Estrada talked about one woman on his Minority Advocacy advisory board.

"I told her about this (ELIP) and she told me, 'you know Gustavo, I want to be involved and I've been looking for how to do it,' " Estrada said.

"They need a link. This program is a link."

Estrada estimates there are about 60 to 70 Hispanic families in the community, along with other minorities such as Somali and Hmong.

"I'm thinking it's important to have someone to be a link to the people," he continued. "Someone to say the community is offering this, or the community needs help here. They feel at home here and want to be involved."

"What kind of blew me away, and I've been in town as long as anyone," Weilage said, "was that our Hispanic population has been here 10, 12, 15 years and is (entrenched) in the community.

"Now we have our first Hispanic firefighter, and that's the kind of thing I'm talking about--building that leadership piece. Building those networks.

"In a community like Marshall, if we look at Amato's take on the turnover (in population), we need a center that's going to develop, too," Weilage added. "We have the churches, the 'Y', but we need a center that can form relationships with those new people in town if we're going to keep them in town.

"If we start keeping them, then we can start talking about other pieces of (development) like your affordable housing."

In a way, then, it's all tied back to Marshall's growth issues--building population, building a workforce, strengthening the schools. If a segment of the population becomes more quickly adjusted to the community--breaking down language and cultural issues--the whole community can benefit, seems to be one of the aims of the ELIP program

And that's the sort of stuff Marshall leaders hope to show to the Neighborhood House today.

The two programs' relationship so far has been one of collaboration, each swapping ideas that seem to work for one another. This spring, the two will be among the programs featured in a PBS TV special about new immigrants.

"There's mutual respect," Weilage said. "They've heard of us, and we've heard of them, and now there is some collaboration.

"It's all about stressing neighborhoods, citizenship, advocacy and leadership. And we need to have that kind of opportunity here."

We saw a strong, new sense of community ring clear last February when Marshall voters approved the school referendum. Now, in a different sense, Marshall is headed more that way, it seems, thanks to a program like the Emerging Leadership Investment Program. It's a great thing to see the plan building new leaders and a more complete sense of community.

Maybe, in the end, this will be less a community of strangers than it has been.