S5:E10 - Love as a Driver in Small Towns

You are listening to the Growing Small Towns Show, a podcast dedicated to supporting you, the person who really cares about the future of your small town. We believe when people get better, everything gets better, and our episodes offer the ideas and actions that prioritize people and small communities. Thank you for listening. We're so glad you're here. Hey friends, and welcome to another episode of the Growing Small Towns Show. Um, sorry, you're getting 2 weeks in a row of just me. This is kind of, I'm gonna call it a mini-sode, except it's me. And so it'll never be mini. Uh, who am I kidding? But the reason for this is because, um, I've had some significant travel. And we've got a couple of really great interviews planned for the coming episodes here. So this is kind of, it's not, I would never just call this a gap filler. We would skip a week if we had nothing of any sort of value to share. I think there is so much value in kind of debriefing the kinds of experiences that I had this week. And so I'm gonna share with you a bit about my trip to the Pacific Northwest. It was the first time I've ever been to that part of the country. Highly recommend, just from a pure nature and topography and just is really a beautiful part of the country. I was really, really grateful for the time. But I went out there specifically to speak to a group of rural economic development folks. So community builders, whether they're chambers of commerce, there was several people in the room that were from an area foundation. There were city council people, they were elect— you know, other electeds, mayors, and then people that are actually doing community and/or economic development. And I'm going to share— I'm going to share in the context of the idea of love. I— that the opening slide that I shared with this group was that today I want to talk about something that I don't think we talk about enough. In community development, and that's love. Um, I am not gonna share the entirety of the slide deck because then what would be the fun in having me ever come to your community and, and share this message? But I wanna share with you some broader, um, I guess takeaways. And, um, I'm, I'm gonna challenge you with kind of 3 things to do today to, to really anchor down into love. Albert Einstein was quoted as saying that love is power because it multiplies the best we have. Love is the most powerful motivator on the planet. I really don't think we talk about it enough. We've got a lot of things that we're facing, a lot of challenges that we're facing in our respective towns, and I believe a little more love could potentially be the answer to unlock some of the things we're struggling with. So the first thing I wanna talk about, it's actually a person I wanna talk about. His name is Paul Kimmel. He was the, the guy that reached out to me and he works for an electric cooperative out in that part of the country. They have a, a pretty large territory in several states. And he is on the board for the, a group called Inland Northwest, Inland Northwest Partners. And the entire reason this organization was formed was to support the economic development people in these communities in their footprint, which again, I will continue to say this everywhere I go, it's so special when you have an engaged utility like that. And so I guess if you're a person that does work for or with a utility company and you're not doing this kind of engagement, I encourage you to take a look at it. It's a really special thing model. And so Paul's been a part of this group. His role now is really, he's a volunteer 'cause he's on the board. Flying to this exact location took, it took 3 flights for me, you know, welcome to rural travel. But what was special about it is I flew into Seattle and then flew from Seattle to a community called Pullman. Now if you're a sports fan, WSU is in Pullman, I had discovered, which I didn't know. But what was special about this to me is that I flew into this little regional airport called Pullman Moscow Regional Airport. Moscow is in Idaho, and that is where the land-grant university for Idaho exists. So these are just 9 miles apart-ish. And got to hear just a lot about that dynamic, which was cool to me. But Paul had a really big hand in making this airport happen. And so I had obviously, it was, what's really cool about this work I think is that I, I've had a lot of people on the show. Paul has had a lot of those people. So tho— these people would be like Becky McCray and, and Deb Brown and, and soon at the end of the month here, my friend Jeff Sigler there. These are people that I've had on this podcast that are doing this work and they're doing, they're doing community development work in their own way. And with their own lens and their own experience. And that's what's so cool about it to me. It's— I don't— I actually now feel even less like we're all competing with one another. And I really think we're all just amplifying each other's work, not just because I'm bringing them on the show and giving them a platform, which I feel really strongly about, but it's because I feel a genuine alignment with these humans and the way that they approach the work. And they have their own background. And every single one of us that's doing this work is doing it in their own way. And it's just, there's something really cool about that. So Paul, when he connected with me, he just said, "I'm a fan of your work. Like, I've loved your approach," which is just really neat. And Paul shows up in the world with a whole lot of love. He loves these rural communities. He loves his 100-year farm that he and his awesome wife Connie live on. Like, I really got to spend some time getting to know him, and love drives a lot of what gets that guy out of bed in the morning. And I, so I just wanted to give Paul a big shout out, doing really great work in this field that so many of us, like so many of us are out here trying to make our communities better. And the reason we're gonna talk about love is because I really do believe, and I'm now more convinced after this trip to Washington, that love is the answer. Um, so here I'll just, I'll just launch into the, the 3 things I want to share with you because, um, I truly just feel like I saw over and over the expansive and transformative power of love, um, in these humans and how it applies to these communities. So here's the first thing I would suggest based on, again, not just this was already the way I felt about the world, it now just I'm doubling down on it, uh, after visiting this part of the country where I'd never been. So the first thing I, I'm going to encourage you to do is truly just focus on doing more of what you love. Uh, one of the people I got to visit with was this great guy, just super friendly guy. I mean, I'm going to make it sound like everybody out there is amazing, but they kind of were. So I— and that's not hyperbole, like I do travel a bit, and this was an incredibly warm and open and receptive group of people. It was really special. So I was visiting with this great guy, his name was Mike, and he was sharing with me, he said, "Rebecca, you know, loved your talk, it was so great." And I was like, you know, "Thanks, Mike." And he said, "You're talking about how, you know, you believe community development is all about people." And he's like, "I'm not sure that's exactly true for me." And I said, "Why do you say that?" And he's like, "Well, I," My entire time that I was working in, uh, community development, and I, you know, so Mike, if you end up listening to this, I, forgive me cuz I don't know what role Mike played like officially in his town, if he worked for the city, if he was on commission or, you know, like what exactly the extent of his role was. But he said, um, I worked on things like infrastructure and water and utility usage and improvements and the development of an industrial park. And, you know, in my mind I would consider those things kind of more of the traditional, um, and foundational elements of economic development. Um, so like none of those things are in any way, they aren't, they are not things that interest me, Rebecca Undum, as a human personally. I don't wanna talk about brownfields and I don't wanna talk about water utilization ratios. And so it's just, it's funny, right? He says this to me and I was like, he said, because my work, so he's like, that's the stuff I focused on. My work was really all about process and kind of those core needs. And I just, it didn't really have anything to do with people. And I looked at him and I kind of smiled and I said, listen, that this, I want you to think about this. Like, I think it has everything to do with people because you worked on the things that you not were not only interested in, but aligned with your talents, your knowledge, your skills, and your experience. So you gave the best of yourself to your community. And I said, we need every human to do that. And then all the stuff gets covered. And I was like, so it, it, I said, I still think that's all about people. You may feel like the work you do, were doing, Mike, specifically didn't work with people, but I said, it's the fact that you as a person gave the best of what you had to offer. And so when people, I think when people step into their communities offering their own, their, the best of themselves, their own backgrounds, their experiences, their talents, I think our communities are enriched by it. So what would it look like if the one thing you thought about today was just focusing on more of what you love? What would you contribute if you let your love lead your choices? What would you let go of? What would you be doing more of? What would you be doing less of? I really do encourage you to think about that because we need everybody to be kind of turned on by their own love. Of things. Okay. Number 2, and this was actually a question that I shared in the group with the group, uh, asking yourself the question, what would make me love my town more? That was a question I was asking myself in 2019 about Oaks, where I'm, where I'm from. Um, and so this is, this is hard to talk about a little bit because I have been criticized not just for a question like that, but like the very idea that I would ever suggest that we could do things better in Oaks. To some people, that— the very mention of feeling, you know, maybe less than fully satisfied or even mildly displeased or unhappy about how things are going in your town, it can be met with some pretty swift backlash. Um, here's what people who respond that way either forget or don't know. Um, and then mostly I just want you, if you're a person that really is pushing for improvement or you wanna make your town better, whatever that means to you, um, this message is for you. I want you to anchor down into this. We don't invest in the things that we don't love. So our desire to improve something or make it better is not an indication that we don't love something. It's proof that we do. We show our love for something by the way that we take care of it, um, by the way that we invest in its improvement. You know, the reason that anybody gets up and like goes to the gym, lifts weights, exercises, runs outside, it's not because we hate our bodies, right? It's because we care enough about them to maintain them and improve them. That's the thing too. I, with small communities, maintenance requires effort. None, none of what we do in community is a one and done deal. Like you fix it once and bam, like there's no fix it and forget it when it comes to making our communities better. Maintenance requires effort. So both that kind of effort and maybe in an investment to like improve something, It's proof of our love. You know, speaking of Jeff, Jeff talks, Jeff Ziegler, um, again, the author of Your City is Sick. We'll, we'll, we'll link to, um, Becky's stuff, Deb's stuff, Jeff's stuff. We'll just link to everything like we always do because we always wanna support our people. Um, Jeff, Jeff usually, uh, not usually has been, he has said, um, when he's traveled to certain communities, one of the phrases he shared with me that he said, and it actually made like the front page of the paper. And I laughed at him. I was like, oh, how did that go over? But basically the front page of the paper said, consultant says, and I don't remember the community, which is probably just fine cuz they don't, wouldn't wanna hear this said about their town anyway. Um, that the community is kind of hard to love. And he and I had a cool conversation about that because that's a really interesting way to describe the state of a place. And so, What, what would it like, what would it look like for us to love our town more? What, what could we do today, right now, without asking anybody for permission, without going to city council, without making a petition, without, without all the formal bureaucracy that often gets in the way of cool stuff happening, in my opinion anyway. What would it look like to, to make your community more lovable? Wherein and what would you be investing, uh, in your community to help you love bit more. And again, the reason I'm telling you, you get to do this is because you listen to the show. You clearly care about your community or you wouldn't be listening at all. The Growing Small Towns show is recorded locally at the Growing Small Towns podcast studio located in Oakes, North Dakota. It's produced by Pheasant Canteen Studio in Aberdeen, South Dakota, with marketing support from Cassidy City Johnston in Canyon City, Colorado. Our intro music was created and produced exclusively for Growing Small Towns by James Bergman, singer and songwriter from Fargo, North Dakota. Local and small, it's what we support and it's who we love. Get your community a shout out on the podcast. Call 701- 203-3337 and share your small town success that you just don't feel is being celebrated quite enough and let us shout you out. You can also share your biggest people challenge and we'll dedicate an episode to offering ideas to help. Hell, you can basically tell us anything and we'll do what we can to answer. We can't wait to hear from you. Today's shout out is, uh, Terry Cooper, the mayor of Medical Lake, Washington. She got a little bit of love in this episode too, but Terry on the panel at this event in Washington State was sharing that they have a pretty strong set of code and codes that they, that they enforce. They have strong code and enforcement policies around vacant buildings on their main street to the point where it's that there is a whole process that, you know, you'll be notified that there's an inspection that happens with your vacant building. You have to decide if you're selling it or renting it. Basically, the entire point of the codes is to eliminate people owning buildings and just sitting on them and also not fixing them so that they look good. And this maybe doesn't sound like a big deal, but I was standing behind the panel because I was actually just kind of there to facilitate the movement of the microphone as they were going up and down the table. And she said that and I grabbed the microphone and I just said, I think we should clap for that because that takes tremendous courage and bravery. And I'm just going to say it now because this is our show, but like, lady balls. Okay, Terry Cooper, this is such a shout out to you for having the courage to, to do that, because there is no way that those— that, that the enforcement of those codes doesn't piss some people off. But again, going back to the point of this episode, their love of that business district, their commercial district, they want it to be vibrant. They want it to look good. They want it to be the kind of place that people want to come and start businesses. Businesses. And if we let vacant properties fall apart, get dilapidated, and be owned by people that don't give a crap about our communities because they don't even live there, then we're— there's no way we can attract the kind of people that we want to start businesses. I believe, and I'll find out, listen, I promise you I will find out if— I believe Terry is willing to share that. I'll see if I can get my hands on it. We'll share it as a resource. But big shout out to Terry and as the mayor and then the rest of the courage on the council because a mayor can't do it alone. A mayor has a city council or a commission that helps support decisions like this. Bold, audacious moves all rooted in love and improvement of place. And takes courage, but dang, it's powerful. So well done, Terry, and well done, Medical Lake. Washington. Okay, number 3. This is another one that I just, I really love. I, I, I walked away, I came back. I travel is, uh, travel is a really important gift to, to us. And if you have the ability to, um, to do it, I highly, highly encourage it. I love the idea that humans, as we're going about and, you know, either meeting new people or, you know, interacting in new ways with people, we, we actually are fundamentally being changed by them. Especially if you really believe that everything's made of energy, which again, I say if you believe it, if you don't believe it, you don't believe in any sort of science. I think, I think that's like patently true. You know, it's a physics thing. Everything vibrates. Everything's a frequency. Everything is energy. So I came back changed and changed for the better. The parts of, of the Pacific Northwest that I brought back with me came to me from these people. Paul, Katie, the executive director of, of this group. Mike, I'm gonna talk about a couple more people here in just a moment. Just really, and I keep saying the word special. I can't think of a better word. Magical. I, I suppose I could say magical. Magical interactions where they— it's— it changes the way you think about your work. It changes the way you think about yourself. It changes the way you think about your community. And travel gives us those experiences. And so it's just so dang cool. Um, this is something I think that I've, I've, I've thrown down as a challenge to my audience before. Um, but today it, it just, it kind of I felt newly reminded of this, of this important thing that every single one of us can do. So here's the third love action I'm encouraging you to take today. Um, pour out your love on the people who offer the things that make you love your town. So I'm gonna be doing this. I really, really encourage you to do too. So think about the things that you love the most about your community. Like, what are you truly just so grateful that exists in your community? And, and so this is where going back to Mike and his, uh, his infrastructure and industrial park stuff, I, I have heard it said that, you know, if you think about that question, it's unlikely that your industrial park is like the top of the list of what makes you love your community. So I do encourage you to think, about gratitude too. Like, what are you super grateful for? Because, so I'm going to share an example that, you know, our little town, we, we recently, our city council, they approved a pretty, pretty massive street improvement project. Um, big money, you know, a lot extra taxes for everybody. Nobody enjoys that. But, uh, my neighborhood where I, where I live in town actually had the the, like, the oldest streets in terms of, like, the last time they had been updated. Um, and so ours got resurfaced. I, you know, I, again, I, this, this is not my, my bag, guys. So I've, I don't know what process was done. If you really wanna know, like, how our streets were redone, you could talk to, you know, our city engineer or like our mayor or something. It's not, I don't know the details, right? Here's what I know. Um, it was a super pain in the ass while it was happening, of course, cuz my commu— like my neighborhood only has one point of access in and out. And so we were parking all over the place, couldn't get into, you know, couldn't access our driveways, that kind of thing for, for a couple of weeks and kind of at different times throughout that process. But dang, is like, these new streets are so smooth and so lovely. And it really is. I really did just go, God, that was, that was worth that hassle. Cuz our, our, uh, we had a lot of potholes. It was pretty rough. Pretty rough, right? So even though this question is really like, think about the things you love the most and pour out your love on the people that made those things happen, I really do encourage you to think a little bit about those bigger kind of core things that are actually really easy to take for granted unless you're prompted like this to think about them and realize that somebody had a hand in making that happen. In my case, It's our city council. They voted this thing through. Now, not everybody loved that decision. I mean, that's part of the deal. It's just, it comes with the territory, right? You're never gonna make everybody happy. Um, but dang, I love my streets. I love our new pothole-free streets. And that's something that humans had to make the decision to do. So as you think about that kind of that first frame of like the things you love so much, why do you love it? Like, what does it actually offer you? If you can, get, get clear and get specific about it. And then in some way, whether you're just shouting it out on social media, um, maybe you're sending that person a handwritten note or writing them a text or calling them, or, you know, even better, walking straight up to them in person, eyeballs to eyeballs. Tell them, tell them. That their presence in your community makes you love it more. Like, think about the beautiful ripple effect of that activity, like loving on the ones that explode your own love. As I spent time with these community builders in the Pacific Northwest, I was, I was truly, I was blown away by their collective love of their communities. So Um, I love when this happens. I was gifted a, a couple of things that, that are produced or made locally. Um, this is new information to me, friends, so I'm excited to share this. Uh, one of the things I was gifted that I was very, very excited about, um, is something called Cougar Gold cheese. It comes in a can. It's a weird big— I say weird cuz like I've never seen cheese in a can. Like, and as the daughter of former cheesemakers— my mom's parents made cheese in Wisconsin— um, I'm probably going to actually shoot a legitimate video of us opening this thing. Like, my daughter's a little cheesehead, my mother is absolutely a cheesehead, um, so we're super— I am super excited. This gift was really, really fun. And I mean, I talked about being the granddaughter of cheesemakers, like in my talk. And so it was super, it was super amazing when we're talking about it and Katie's like, well, you have to have Cougar Gold cheese. And so she brings me this, right? Then all the different people coming up to me and telling me all the different ways I need to eat it, like what I need to do with it was so fun. One of my best friend, Winona, she's been on the show before. She lives in Nashville. She grew up in the Pacific Northwest. She was like, oh my gosh, we love Cougar Gold cheese. And I was like, What is even happening? It's just those kind of like cult favorite things that make your community your community is so, so fun. They were excited to share about it because of their love of it. And what was even funnier, it's like, you know, again, I'm going to a place I've never been and I'm interacting with people I've never met. And I felt such a strong sense of community and almost felt like home. It was really, it was unlike anything I've really experienced in my travels. And I was bringing my Cougar Gold cheese through, I was running it through a security scanner in Pullman's airport because I wanted to get it home. And this sweet little older couple behind me in line were, you know, pointing out the fact that I was bringing home Cougar Gold cheese and asked if I had ever had it before. And then they gave me some suggestions on how to use it. I mean, come on, like you can't even, you, you can't even write that. Like that's like, it felt like a movie. Like people were all, and then I get through the scanner and The guy's like, "I'm gonna have to test it out a little bit." I'm like, "Yeah, do your thing." I said I was just being very clear about the fact that I was trying to bring this home. And he's like, "Well, just for next time when you visit us, we do have a vending machine of it." And I look over and there's a refrigerated vending machine that literally you can just buy cans of Cougar Gold cheese right at the airport. So I thought that was pretty dang fun. They shared their love of their thing with me. The challenges that these people are facing in their communities are so similar to the things that, you know, I've seen here in talking with local economic developers. You know, there's housing, whether it's a lack of affordable housing, the current housing stock is old, can't afford new builds, all of those things came up. Population decline in general, you know, Um, just the fact that we're not growing and the metro areas are, um, shrinking resources that— how do you deal with it when there's 5 little towns right around each other and they're all about 300, 400 people and they're all chasing the same thing, so they're all fighting for the same resources. Like, those are things that we all face. And then, you know, just general market dynamics that are all out of our control. Um, as long as I'm alive, uh, every single one of those things is likely gonna continue to be a challenge for our communities. For small towns across the country. So I guess what I'm, what I'm here to tell you today is that I'm determined that while I'm here, I am going to continue to remind people to root down in their deep love of place, of people, and continue to work towards love of self. Because what would radical love for ourselves, each other, and our communities actually look like? So if you're with me and you're not driving, just for a minute, minute, just close your eyes and imagine this with me. I, I want you to picture your town. I want you to imagine every single person in your town walking around with a strong sense of who they are. They know what lights them up. They know what their unique gifts are. And imagine them walking around your community every single day, looking for the ways, the places to show and bring the best of themselves to your community. Imagine the richness of your community's vibe. Think about what you'd be seeing and hearing. What would you be tasting? What would, what would it smell like? What would you be experiencing in a community where there was actually room for everybody to be who they are and offer what they can? What would it look like if every single person in your town could show up fully? With love? What would change? What, what, what good stuff, the joys, the delights, what would get better, bigger? What would expand? What heartaches, pains, disappointments, challenges, what would diminish? I can't even tell you again how struck I was by the hope and the grit in some of the, the humans that I met out there. I was especially struck by a, a woman named Sarah. Um, from a town called La Crosse. Um, she was on a pan— she served on a panel. They had a panel discussion kind of at the tail end of the day that we spent together out there. And she was asked what her barriers were to growth in a town of 300 people. And you know, she named a lot of the things I just mentioned, you know, housing, lack of resources, obviously just lack of humans. The idea of the same, same 10 people. Um, somebody dropped it to 8. They were like, it's the same 8 people, which I kind of chuckled about. I was like, oh, well at least we have the same 10 around out here, right? Like, these are just such common problems. But what struck me was when she was asked what she sees for her town in 20 years. Without hesitation and full confidence, Sarah said, I don't exactly know what I'll see in La Crosse 20 years from now, but here's what I do know. It'll still be there. Because the people that live here and live there now today are going to make sure of it. And that's what— that's what this work is supposed to be about. Nobody's coming to save us. Nobody's going to do it for us. And it's love of place that drives not just our survival, but our thriving. There's one other person I want to call out. Her name is Terri Cooper. I, she's actually going to be featured in this episode shout out. I'm gonna tell a little bit more about something specifically that she did. Um, she's the mayor of Medical Lake, uh, Washington. And, uh, honestly, I felt an immediate connection to her. She really shows up with, uh, with a warmth and, and like she shows up with a clear visible love, like for people. And I could just, I could just feel it. Immediately. So I asked her if I could shout her community out because specifically she's got this really cool thing. So be sure you listen to the shout out in this episode. So when I came back, I returned and I looked her up, you know, just to see if I could find, you know, any extra information that I could kind of use to tell the story of who Terry is. I found her campaign page for when she was running for mayor. And the opening lines of her bio read, I love Medical Lake. I moved here in the early '70s when my father was transferred to Fairchild Air Force Base. I fell in love with the beauty and the people. You guys, she fell in love with the beauty and the people. When was the last time you let yourself fall in love? And why not make it today? So really today, and I did, I called it a mini, a mini sode, and we're at almost a full half hour. I'm not apologizing. It is what it is, friends. Uh, but this today, it's a call to action. It's a call to love in a time when there's, you know, clearly there's so much division. I really do feel that there's some hate. Um, there's a lot of disagreements among us. I, I just simply wanna remind you that if you lift your head, look around a bit and look for the lovers. You will find them. I, I'm going to leave you with this. I also, throughout this, this trip, my flight time was punctuated with binging the seasons of Love on the Spectrum, which is a Netflix series. There is an American version and there's the Australian version. I was actually watching the Australian version because I had already binged watch all the American episodes. This is one of those shows that it deeply affects me. All I can say about it is, besides that it deeply affects me, because I just said that, but I'm also just going to say that it is— there's a purity in the way these humans are showing up in the world. Um, it, it just always, it always inspires me to be a better person, to be a more interesting, caring, loving, thoughtful, compassionate person. And, um, while I was finishing up season 2 of, uh, Love on the Spectrum Australia, I was really struck by a comment that one of the, um, people on the show made. His name is Jayden. He's like a fancy guy and he liked big words. He was, he used a phrase, it was like linguistic expression or something. I just, such a delight. And, um, when he was doing kind of his talking head video and the producer was saying, you know, why do you, why are you looking for love? Jayden's answer was, love is the most chaotic force in the cosmos. And of course I was like, I like, I, I cry and I laugh. It's like the full spectrum of feels with the show, but it just felt to me like it put a bow on this experience of visiting the Pacific Northwest, hanging out with Paul and Katie and Connie. I spent some time with Jenny. I got to meet Mike. I got to listen to Sarah and I got to meet Terry. Um, which please listen to the shout out cuz you're gonna love it so much. And, and I just thought, I am no longer going to be apologetic for encouraging people to let love be their guide. So I'll ask you again, when was the last time you fell in love? And why not make it today? Thanks for listening, friends. We'll see you soon. We'll talk soon. And next week we'll be back with an awesome guest on our show. Thanks for listening. We hope you loved this episode of the Growing Small Towns show. We encourage you to leave us messages at 701-203-3337. And be sure to subscribe to our newsletter at growingsmalltowns.org. In the meantime, keep doing what you can with what you have right where you are. You're community needs you.

Because we are growing small towns, we are growing small towns, we're right here living our best It's crazy as it sounds, but we are growing small towns, growing small towns. We are growing small towns. We are growing small towns.