S5:E14 - How to Engage Youth in Small Towns with Karen Pifher

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. Our guest on today's episode is Karen Pfeiffer. She founded and started, one of the co-founders of Creating Community Consulting out of Freezy, Minnesota. And it was super fun to have Karen on the show. She actually reached out way back when we were just, had just opened our doors and she and two of her colleagues came with her. They visited from, from Freezy. They came to Oaks and saw us here in the building. And Karen, this, this organization that Karen has created, we're going to give you all the links in the show notes. But it's unbelievable, the story that she shares, especially about engaging the youth in such a meaningful way in their community. There are tons and tons of lessons that we can learn from Karen. I am going to give fair warning, uh, we were having some difficult internet issues between the two of us, and there are times where you can kind of hear Karen's voice cut— it doesn't cut all the way out. Um, and I, I just, I felt such value in what we were talking about that I chose to publish this versus like re-recording it and starting over. Um, so bear with us on some of the, the audio that you'll hear her voice specifically kind of go out. Um, but you're going to get so much from this conversation if you're interested in engaging your youth in a more meaningful way in your community. So, uh, without further ado, here's our friend Karen. Well, hey Karen, welcome to the Growing Small Town Show. It's so good to see you.

Yes, you too.

I, uh, we were just chatting. I can't believe it's been— we decided it was 2 and a half years, right, since you came and physically visited us here at our building in Oaks. Um, and you've launched like a whole thing since then. So I, I also think if you're— yeah, if you're okay with this, can you share a little bit about like what prompted you to reach out? Um, because you drove, you drove a decent distance. To come and see me that day. Um, you know, what prompted you to reach out? Because again, I always think all of these little things, these actions that every single one of us take, whether it's to make a connection or make a choice like you did to drive here, um, all of those things kind of lead to the next thing, right? And if people can take something away from that, I want them to. So let's start at our origin story, if you're willing.

Absolutely. So when I reached out to you, um, I was at a little bit of a crossroads. Um, I had been doing community health assessment and community health implementation plan work for several years. And I really love the work and believed that we have, you know, we have a responsibility to take control of our communities and make them better places for everybody to live. And I was looking at launching my own company, believing that there was a market to be able to do this work.

Oh, time out real quick. You just broke up. You just broke up in that, in that little chunk. So just start that sentence over if you can. Sorry.

Absolutely. Um, so I believe that there was an opportunity to create a private business to do this work, um, in our communities to create stronger communities. And I was at a conference in Purim and you were a guest Speaker, and I was just really motivated and felt validated by what you were saying about how we as people can show up and make a difference in our community. And you talked about the work you were doing in Oakes, North Dakota, and I was like, I need to go check that out. And so I launched our company in April of 2022. I brought Megan and Emily with, and we came out to see you. It was probably like June or July, I think.

Mhm.

And, um, really wanted to see what you had created and to just engage and hear more about your story and what that looked like, um, just to really help us think about how we were going to shape the company. And at that time, Megan and Emily were subcontractors with me, so I was working solo trying to develop the company, um, and from there it has just skyrocketed and I'll back it up with a lot of that passion of mine came from the space of being— I was a teen parent at 16, and I know what it's like to raise my kids as a single parent. I've been through domestic violence and many different situations, and I was that mom that walked through the grocery store with quarters in my pocket, like, crying because I didn't know if I should buy butter or milk because I couldn't afford both to make macaroni and cheese when my son was little. And I've stood in line at human services in tears as people tried to explain to me that there was no help for me. And as there's—

Okay, stop, stop, stop real quick. Sorry, that part's breaking up again, and I really want to make sure that that comes through. So I— the last thing I heard clearly was, um, I, I had to decide between butter and milk to make macaroni and cheese. So if you can— I'm sorry— to— if you can just pick up. We also, if you want, we could try to stop our videos. I just love to be able to see your face, but that might help with bandwidth. I don't know if that's It's up to you, whatever you think.

I— it didn't help when I was on a call this morning.

Okay, then let's just keep— we'll just keep going and we'll just— we'll break them apart. Not a big deal. So if you can, because it's so powerful, it's a powerful part of your story. So that was what I last heard clearly.

Absolutely. And so I have been the person to stand in line at human services in tears with my kids as somebody explained to me in the lobby that I didn't qualify for services. And there's a room full of people staring at you, um, and there's no option for me how to get to work. Um, I also had, uh, went through a divorce and moved into town with my kids so that they could be closer to things, so that I wouldn't have to drive so far to get them to school activities. And when I did that, my, um, my children were teenagers and My, my daughter specifically, um, really struggled with that because she'll tell you, she's like, there was nothing to do in this town for kids. And so then she's wandering around while I'm at work at 12, 13 years old and ended up just in a really tough situation, um, and went through many things that didn't— she didn't have to go through if there would have been better resources in this community. And so have just really use that passion and that experience to drive my life to be committed to creating better communities, especially for our youth, because they deserve it. Yeah.

Okay. There's so many things. So you broke up a little bit there, but I didn't stop you just because I know— I mean, so we'll hit those little glitches. I think the crux of your message still came through. So a couple things as I listen to that, I just want to Um, first of all, just thank you for your, your openness and your honesty. Those are, those are certainly catalyzing experiences for somebody to, to have. And I appreciate so much that you, you took those life experiences and said, if I can help, I will help. And if I can do something, I'm gonna do something. And I just, I think that's There's so much power in that, Karen, and not, not everybody does that, right? Um, and I think too, like, you're, you're highlighting that, that just, it's, that it's, to me, whenever I hear, you know, stories, and you had several layers there of just different parts of kind of, you know, the early part of your story is just challenges that you went through. Um, any single one of those situations, I, I often feel like it's It's such a, um, it, it makes, it taps into my empathy for just humans and the human experience, right? It's very much like there but by the grace of God go I. Like, it's when we know people that have had any, anything, you know, that, and you just, I just don't understand how people don't end up having a lot of compassion and empathy. But, um, very rarely do I meet people that say, yeah, and I'm going to make sure that we can minimize this happening to other people. So I just, I did, I didn't know that. I didn't know that was in your background. Thank you so much for starting there. I think that's, that's super important. Um, okay. So what, tell us a bit about, um, Creative Community Consulting.

Yeah.

We're creating, sorry, it's creating. Yes. Sorry, sorry, sorry. I, I knew as soon as it came outta my mouth, it was wrong. So, Yeah, tell us about all of the— because you have a lot. I checked out your website. You have a lot of services that you offer. What do you feel like you're best known for?

We are best known for our, uh, transformative community change with youth. Um, I would say we work primarily— over 50% of our work is with government agencies, including social services and public health. And how do you engage youth or people most impacted by health disparities to create the changes that they need to see to be healthier? And a lot of that work came from the work that I've done in Frazee, and people have seen that and they've seen what's happened here and they're just inspired and they're like, how did you do that? And so we've been able to take that and scale it. And so we A lot in those spaces.

Okay, time out. Yep, time out. You're breaking up. I want to hear this part for sure. So yeah, so you said we've been able to scale it. That was the last thing I heard. Go ahead and pick up.

So we've been able to scale the service. We provide services to nonprofit development, both building capacity, strategic planning types of things, and we are expert grant writers. Anyone in a small town doing community development services, you have to be, um, or you learn to be one or the other. Um, and then we, um, have launched this whole software, um, Grant Writing Made Simple, and we have an AI Grant Accelerator. And so we have done that because what we have found through all of the work that we do, whether it's economic development or public health or nonprofit development, is that People know the answers, um, they know the solutions that they need to be better. You just need to ask them, and we need to provide them with tools that make them more able to do their job, that they can learn to do this work locally. I can't go into your community and make a huge difference there necessarily because I don't have the relationships that you do, but I can provide you with tools that make you successful. Mm-hmm. So that's what we've really focused on.

And I mean, I think, oh my goodness, like, I think about how valuable people that know how to write grants is because, so what you just said to me, it's absolutely true. Like, if you're in economic community development in a small town, the only thing I would say is that if you decide you're not going to get good at it, you're going to have to partner with somebody that is, right? And you'll have to pay for that. Support. If you decide yourself, I'm not going to develop the skills to write grants, grants are such a critical part of funding all sorts of things for communities the size of the ones that we live in. So I think what a huge thing to be able to offer. So how broad is your service territory?

Minnesota. We are currently working in 20 different counties. Just in Minnesota though, right?

Right, right now, just in the state of Minnesota. But you could work with— technically, you could work with anybody anywhere, right?

Yes, we do some work in Fargo, North Dakota. We've done some up into like working with Northern Cass School, and we could work with anybody. And the software is primarily based in Minnesota right now because we're trying to scale it in a way that will help us grow and be able to make it so that it's super useful and efficient and effective for other states. But we have filled it out one state at a time because the grants that are available, the data, the resources are different by state.

Oh, sure.

So we're focusing on Minnesota and then are, yes, planning to grow it to be nationwide. That being said, it will pull information across the nation in general, but we do have parts of the software that are very specific to Minnesota at this point until we can expand it.

That's amazing. God, good for you, Karen. Seriously. I mean, this is the first time I've laid eyes on you and we're on Zoom, right? Obviously that's why we're having like little internet glitches here. So hopefully everyone's bearing with us on that. It's fine. This is actually— sometimes I laugh. I'm like, yeah, this is what it's like to be in rural places. Sometimes our internet is spotty, right?

Yeah.

But I mean, I don't mean for this to sound condescending in any way, but like, I'm legitimately so proud of you. Like, I— it's been— you've really done so much with your business in the 2 and a half years since I last saw you, and it's, it's really impressive. I— like, it's kudos to you. So how about the youth? I would love to hear a bit more about what kinds of things you said. You said specifically that the work you had done right in Fraser, which is where you live now, right? And Fraser and Perham aren't that far from each other, right? Like, they're, they're like neighbor, neighbor cities or communities. Um, so in Fraser, what are some of the things that you've really done to activate the youth? And, and especially if you can get specific on, you know, some of the health disparity things, how you're, how you're addressing that, what that looks like, just to see if we can spark some ideas for people that might be listening and having these same issues, right? Because that's what we, that's what we try to do here.

Yeah. So I conducted the community health assessment in Becker County in 2019, and we identified that youth mental health was the top priority across the community. That's something that everybody cared about. And how do we address it? And so I really dug into researching and getting trained on practices and how do you actually drive data change in a community? Like, what, what does that look like? How do I shift metrics? And, um, what we did was, uh, we pulled out the disparity in the data and looked at the different schools and said, okay, who is most impacted? Because for me to make a difference in Becker County, and if I try to serve everybody, it's like throwing a handful of darts at the wall, right? Um, so you really need to target and hone in on what you're aiming to change. And through that work, we identified that Frazee-Vergas School had a higher rate of youth experiencing depression, hopelessness, um, compared to other counties. It was almost 15% higher.

Oh, that's significant. It was— that was that across age groups, or did you have a specific targeted group of, you know, age groups that you were targeting?

We were really looking at that 8th grade to 11th grade because of the fact that, um, that's where you see those challenges the most, right? And so what we did is I took, um, I took the data and then came to Frazee Fergus and gathered youth, especially youth that were most impacted by, by those experiences. And we had listening sessions where youth, we asked youth, we're like, why is this happening? What is going on that makes you feel this way? Right?

Right.

Yeah. It's powerful. Um, and they wrote down on a large sheet of paper, they just had to write, and they didn't have to say anything out loud if they didn't want to, and they just wrote down like, what are all the reasons why you feel that way? And when we go through that, we kind of go through this, what caused, like we keep asking why to get deeper. And ultimately what we heard from youth was that they felt like they didn't belong here. They weren't wanted here. Um, there was no place for them to be outside of school. Um, if they weren't in sports, there weren't activities maybe that supported them. And the cafe closed at 3, so they couldn't even go someplace and eat with their friends. And that was a huge problem for them. Um, so then we flipped the script around, and then we asked them, what would need to be different here to address those? Then, like, what, what would need to be different? What would it look like? What would it feel like? What would be happening? Or what would be here if that was case. And ultimately they came up with this vision of having a cool place to hang out with awesome people and fun activities and food. Food was huge.

So I feel like that's just such a theme. It's how we get adults to show up to stuff too. We just got to feed people. It's a thing.

And then we took— I developed a community mapping tool that we teach this., and we teach people how to use it. And we take GIS maps and we have youth engage around them, or adults, um, and create the community that they want to live in. What would be different? Where, where would it be? What do you imagine if this was the best place to be a kid? And they create legends on these maps, and, um, it's just such a powerful experience. And then we ask the youth to, um, engage in leadership, and so they had the opportunity to present some of the information. And honestly, they had tons of things on the boards. They wanted frisbee golf. They wanted a drive-in movie theater. They wanted a swimming pool. They wanted more public art in town. They wanted more in their parks and playgrounds. They wanted a volleyball net. And so what ended up happening is we did that with adults as well in the community. And we were able to, um, prioritize, like, see what these priorities came out to be. And we started with the small wins. So the city of Frazee partnered with the Lions Park and they put in frisbee golf. The next year, um, the city partnered with the, the guys downtown and they put in an outdoor skating rink with a Free Skate Exchange, um, warming house. Uh, we took the kids downtown and did public art. We did, like, kindness challenges. Now throw COVID in the middle of this. It was really fun. Yeah. So we did drive-in movie theater with one of the churches because they had an outdoor screen. And so we really just tried to partner with people in the community that could help make some of those smaller things come to life. And that built a lot of motivation for change. And through that, we had this larger vision of creating this space. And so The Methodist Church in town happened to be building a new building. Their building was pretty old, and it's located right next to the school, and they said, hey, can we donate our building to you for this space for the kids? And we were like, yes. And note that this was a very grassroots organization at the time. I'd never led a capital campaign or anything. Like it. I knew how to write grants, but not, not necessarily capital campaign. And so we gathered people. I helped develop the organization now called Cornerstone Community and Youth Center, um, or Community Youth and Family Resource Center. And, um, it now is a two-level building. The lower level, um, has a complete youth center with a full STEAM lab with more equipment, um, science, technology, art equipment than you can imagine. There's sewing machines, 3D printer, CNC, laser engraving, wood, wood burning. They have every kind of art thing you could imagine. They have a full kitchen and there's a food cupboard, and the school does a food drive in collaboration with Layton Broadcasting, and they deliver all the food. And so those kids come in and they're just like in that kitchen, in the space, making their own food, learning, growing, eating. We also have a hangout space. There's lots of games and just a place for kids to be sometimes because they're so structured in school. Sometimes they just want to hang out. And then we have Adults That Care that come and we have staff and then we have volunteers that come in too and just to spend time with these kids. And it's open Monday through Friday from 9 to 5:30 and it is free and it's for kids age 11 to 18. And it's been just a phenomenal resource. And in less than 2 years we've almost outgrown the building. Um, and then the upper level, one of the biggest things we heard was, um, that a youth center would never work here. There was a lot of them built in the '80s, um, and they didn't have sustainable funding. And so they ended up, um, they ended up shutting down because of that. And so then we asked the question, well, what would it look like if it did work? And really we looked at our comprehensive plan in the community and identified like, what do people want? Like, what kind of business would work here that we could create more of a social innovation model? And, um, because the cafe closed at 3 and it was a traditional cafe, the, um, yes, the community really wanted another place to eat. So we opened a bistro and coffee shop where it's a— sells crepes as a highlight, waffles, um, their sandwiches, but primarily crepes is a big part of the menu. Um, and then it really really good gourmet coffee shop. There's also a performing arts stage up there because music was a big part, and, uh, in the arts. And then there's also a space where we sell art retail for local entrepreneurs and youth, and so they're able to display their things in that space. And so the, the whole building, we gutted it. I mean, we were there with masks on during COVID and we're tearing out the insulation in the walls and re-insulating It was just this crazy, crazy grassroots movement in town. And there was a lot of naysayers and people who said they didn't think we'd ever be able to do it. And I'm like, well, what if we did? And, you know, you just find your people and you keep moving. And now we've served almost 300 youth. We have more than 150 youth volunteering thousands of hours a year to the community, to different projects and services. They— the youth leadership that has emerged through this is unbelievable. We have youth that want to move back to Frazee and keep making a difference. We have youth on board of directors at different organizations. I've had youth down doing legislative advocacy at the Capitol for different things, and we've got youth leading Capitol campaigns in high school for pickleball courts. Yeah, so it's just exploded.

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 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 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 to Platt, South Dakota, population about about 1,300. Our friend Jerome shared that two of the things that make him proud to call Platt home is that they have a multi-church community youth group. I got the pleasure of speaking in Platt, South Dakota. I had never been there before, and I actually got to meet one of the young people involved with the organization of this group, and we just— it struck us how special and cool it is that instead of having very small youth groups for each church, they saw the benefit in collaboration coming together, and they have one community youth group. The second thing Jerome shared with us was the restored Lyric Theater. Um, this is a— it was a beautiful building. We actually got to go into it. One of the breakout sessions was held in this space, and we heard multiple times about the generosity of the man who purchased this old building. It was in pretty rough shape and brought it back to life for the community. And it again just goes to show that when people care, great things happen. So well done, Platt, South Dakota, and thank you for sharing your love, Jerome. Karen, um, I have like 10 million questions. I mean, I obviously— we— I won't just pepper you with questions. Again, I want to say What, like, job well done, not just specifically to you, but to your entire community. I mean, I think what I love so much about all of this, well, A, I love anything that's grassroots. I personally think most of the time that's what it looks like. You know, you, somebody has to have the idea and then say, let's do it. And then you build momentum from there. Um, there's several things you said though, so I'm just going to kind of take them a bit at a time. So first of all, I think one of the things that holds communities back sometimes from even holding like a listening session, which is what you started with, right? Where you brought the youth in and you said, okay, what's really going on here? Were you, was anybody, any group funded to do that? Did you write a grant to do that or was that all just donated time?

Yeah, at the time I was working for Essentia Health and because part of my work was to do the health needs assessment and implementation plan.

You just cut out right there, so I want to make sure I catch. So Essentia had earmarked or had some funds set aside to support that effort. Is that what— is that right? No.

Essentia paid me to do my job, like, so that was their investment. Was to have me help continue to develop the implementation plan. West Central Initiative.

Oh, that's what you said.

Small amount of funding to do the listening sessions to improve mental health of youth in rural community. And so they provided some seed money to do that.

Okay.

And then the Methodist Church donated the building and Essentia Health did provide seed money to, to start you know, towards the capital campaign initially. And I'm just going to be brutally honest. So there's myself, some other people that if we didn't volunteer a huge part of our lives, it wouldn't have happened. Because E-Center provided some great money that allowed us to leverage other money. And we applied, we had a significant amount of grant funds that we were able to leverage because I know how to write grants. Right. But it really was these volunteers and people coming together that just gave a huge part of their life to make this happen and come to life.

Well, I wouldn't want you to be anything but honest about it. I mean, I think— I just think it's because, again, like, you know what I think is interesting? Well, I mean, I think this entire story is interesting. I really want to come and see this, this old church building and just really take in the whole experience. I seriously do want to come and check it out. It sounds absolutely incredible. But I think oftentimes in our rural or small communities, what we assume is the barrier is the money. And yes, access to funds, it can be challenging. You might have to learn how to do capital campaigns, which is something you said you didn't even know how to do, right? But these skills with enough passion and enough grit and enough determination, actually, they're they're, they're learnable. You can find resources, you can find people that'll help. Um, but I think what can't be ever replaced is the passion, the heart, and the grit of the people that are involved. Like, people have to care as much as you and your group of amazing volunteers cared, or it doesn't matter. You could have all the funding in the world, it's not going to actually pull off what you're talking about.

Yes. And it's— and that's, uh, honestly one of the biggest things I look for in staff. Um, I can teach skills any day of the week. We can find training for people. I can't teach passion. And if you want to do this work, you have to have passion. It has to be a hard thing because it's really hard. Please.

It's so hard. The work is so hard. And I think whether we're talking public sector work, that's what this is, or you're running a business. You know, like you're, you're, if you are doing your own thing, the, the most important ingredient truly to me is grit, which comes back to like, can I adapt? Can I, you know, can I tweak what's happening when things don't go the way we thought they would? You know, all of that, that flexibility that I'm not gonna give up, I'm not gonna just quit. Like, and that isn't something, I mean, that isn't something that that, I mean, I'm sure it's, I'm sure it's somewhat developable. Like I imagine to a degree it's a muscle. You could, you could probably find ways to flex it, but I think you've gotta have just like a baseline level of it or things like what you're talking about won't and don't happen. And that's, it's why I'm so happy you're here, Karen. I, Growing Small Towns, the whole reason it exists is because I, I really believe that individual people can completely change the face of their community.

Yes, absolutely.

I think the best things happen. I think that things like this happen. They happen one person at a time. And yes, eventually you find other people. You found your people. Um, but we just, my goodness, that's why it's, it, I think it's, it was Margaret Mead, right? That said like, never underestimate what a dedicated or committed, passionate group, small group of individual citizens, like what they can accomplish, what they can do. And that's what you've done. And it's, it's, it's awesome. So another thing you mentioned, and you mentioned it real quickly, like there were a lot of naysayers. Can you elaborate at all on just kind of how you and your group moved through that? Did you have any sort of specific way that you engaged those folks? Did you mostly just like, you invited them and then eventually were like, we hear you and we're doing it anyway? Or what was your general approach? Because I just think.

I—

there's a couple things with this. I think a lot of times people don't realize, because like, on the— on its face, you would think, who is going to argue with trying to help our kids get more engaged in the community? And lo and behold, Karen, somebody's gonna— somebody's not gonna like it, or they're not gonna like where you're doing it or how you're doing it, or they're not gonna like who's on the committee, right? It is astounding the things people find to like resist against. So I, I love that you just said that because you're talking about something that arguably, who's gonna hate it? Well, of course somebody did. So I also think just that acknowledgement's important, but then if there's specific things you did to kind of maneuver that, so it didn't take you, it didn't burn you out, didn't wreck your heart, you know, didn't kill your energy. Please share.

The number one thing I would say in general that I learned and continue to practice all the time is that it's never about my ideas. When people feel that they own solutions, they're more likely to get behind it or at least not stand in the way. And so what I did was really engage people, people who maybe weren't supportive or didn't have good things to say. I asked if they'd meet for coffee and just said, like, help me understand, like, what it is you know, that, that you're seeing, like, what are you concerned about? Help me think about, like, what would you, what would you do to address those things? Or how would you reframe? And honestly, they made the project better. Um, good for you. Because originally we were just going to do a youth center and people were like, well, that won't work because how are you going to fund it? Freezy is a poor town. I mean, we don't, you know, we don't have a lot of money. Our BDM income is low where we don't have large employers other than the school.. And so I'm like, you know, I don't know, let's figure this out. And so we really maybe dive in deeper and really figure out how do places become sustainable in rural small communities of 1,300 people? Like, what could we do and what would it look like? And so I spent time with people having coffee, listening, and it depended on what kind of naysayer they were, right? You know, but for the most part, I tried to engage them and at least give them space to be able to help inform because it made it a better project.

Right. Was there anybody that you actually just had to say, like, okay, it isn't worth my efforts to engage in these conversations? I mean, did you have any of that, or was it mostly that the input was constructive and helpful?

Yeah, I would say it was a combination. I didn't directly have to tell somebody, like, I'm not going to spend any more time with you because I don't feel like— Right. To them.

Yeah.

Then I have to make the conversation like after our initial coffee and not reengage. Yeah. There was people that I had to do that with because they weren't the right people, you know? And that's okay. There's a place for everybody. Yes.

Yep. I think that's one of the most important things that I think sometimes we can miss in some of these projects, right? Like you, there probably are enough people in your community. And again, I know this is hard to say because it just depends on how big your town is, what your idea is. All those things. But everybody, everybody does deserve to like love where they live. That's it. To me, that's just, that's a, that's a truth. And so it's recognizing that, um, just because some people don't like your project or what you are trying to make happen, hopefully their specific either skills, perspective, talents, whatever, can be given to something else that don't match up with yours. And that's why you need both, right? You need, that's why you need all the things.. That's how people find their way in a community.

Well, and it's interesting because some of the biggest skeptics have come around and now are huge supporters. There's one guy that we became friends through this whole thing, and he was checking all the time to see, like, how are things going? Are you making progress? And checking in all the time. And now he is my right-hand person in town, and I couldn't do a lot without him. There's other people who said at first they're like, you know, I don't know what they're doing with this church. They're just throwing kids, you know, going to throw kids in there, whatever. And then after it was built and the programming and we hired a director and a youth program manager and started developing what it was, what it was going to do and how it was going to—

day in and day out, right? Yeah.

Yep. There's people who came back and said they're like, I'm so sorry. Like, I didn't see it. And now I totally get it. Like, this is—

That's always so heartening, isn't it? And, and I've, you know, I've— we've talked about this, this idea of that before, because it's not necessarily that you're setting out to turn people, but it's just recognizing that sometimes people really can't see what it is, what they can't see, the vision of what you're trying to do. And you can— we can come up with all sorts of creative ways to try to bring them along, and sometimes Sometimes it just has to happen. And so I, my, my general feeling about it is that I will continue to leave. It's an open invitation. Like I, I, I'll just continue to say, you're welcome to come in and enjoy this thing if you finally decide you want to. Right, right. But it isn't, that isn't your job. But I think, I love that. That is always a good feeling, isn't it? When you're like, oh, and those, that's meaningful when you just go, oh, I appreciate that. So much because it takes some humility to admit that maybe you weren't super supportive and to turn around. That's super cool.

And one thing that you asked about, like, protecting heart, right? I'm going to quote my friend Tom, who told me that if you have no fear and no common sense, you'll be fine. And, and I feel like that truly is the epitome a little bit. And so for me, the way I protected my heart was really through my faith. I have just an amazing church community and I found my people, you know, who really wanted to go there with me. And we— you take care of each other and there's going to be hard days. There just are. There's setbacks, there's challenges. You feel like it's never going to happen. And then all of a sudden, you know, wonderful happens and you're like, oh my gosh, we're doing this. But really having that sense of faith in the people that take care of each other was huge because you need that. You do. Because it was a journey.

Yeah, you do. I appreciate you. I appreciate you touching on that. I've talked a lot about that. My project and what I did here in my town is very different from what you're talking about, obviously. Um, but there, I wouldn't have survived, like, even the renovation, um, paying for it, getting it. Like, I, I wouldn't have survived it had it not been for my really great, just core group of people that, that showed up, took care of me, helped me, supported me, and challenged me, right? Like, we don't— you don't just need people to be like, oh, you're awesome. You need people to help you make your thing better too. Um, but man, it, it's, it's super critical. So I love, I love that you shared that. I, so I think for, for everybody listening, I am wondering if you're willing to share a bit of what your sustain— what is the sustainable funding model for this program? Yeah, you know, absolutely. What does that look like now?

Absolutely. So we did a capital campaign over 5 years, um, and it would likely take a couple years, um, with our business model to grow before it would become sustainable. Um, but intentionally opened a bistro and coffee shop that's open to the public. And so you can come in and get crepes, coffee, pinsa pizzas, sandwiches, build your own, um, all that kind of stuff, grab and go. Um, and then we do performances and activities. Um, and then we have the art makerspace where we do sell artists' wares up there. And so we have a full business model that the youth from the community work there. Um, and so they're learning entrepreneurial skills and job skills. Uh, and so that's a big part of, of the sustainable income is that the bistro is open, um, 6 days a week. And so you can come and support our local youth by eating out at Cornerstone, right?

And the kids are— are the kids volunteers only, so you don't have any overhead, or they're paid? They're paid as well.

However, we have several kids that are working there. Uh, we partner with Rural Minnesota SEP to offer kids jobs that that, um, that have to qualify. So you have to have a qualifying event to be able to, um, be a part of that program, and it has to be a physical or mental disability of some kind. And so we have several youth that work through that program, and so they actually pay for the wages for the youth then to do that. And you might not be able to get jobs in other places because of whatever that is that they qualify Right. So, okay, we do have that. Um, but yes, we make sure that they get paid. And so, because they're working, they, they deserve that. Um, and then we take commission on the art that we sell. Um, so we have that part of the funding, and then we have, um, a significant amount of grants each year that we bring in. Um, because once we got it built, we didn't stop asking how you could be better. We kept engaging and we continued to engage to keep asking like, okay, what will it look like? What, what needs to be here? What are the activities? And we got deeper and deeper. In fact, we implemented a whole Native American cultural program because about 18% of our youth are Native American and were not on the reservation and they didn't have access to things like arts, culture bearing, language. And so we really worked on implementing that. And so we have been able to tap into a lot of grant funding to support a lot of the programming and the initial operating costs till we get to a more sustainable model. And then we have several events throughout the year where we do fundraising.

Sure.

We have an annual gala and, uh, we do a haunted forest that is almost completely run by youth. We have over 50 youth that volunteer to pull that off, um, each year and we serve over 600 people last year through it.

Um, holy smokes, it's absolutely astounding. I honestly, I'm like sitting here and I'm thinking like, I think there, you know, there are certain groups that would— I, I can't even imagine 50 kids showing up to, well, you know, volunteering. It's hard to— not just youth, but I mean everyone, everyone struggles getting people to volunteer. It's just kind of a It's a, it's a big thing in the zeitgeist for small towns right now, right? Like getting people to volunteer is hard. I, I just think this is so incredible. Like what an incredible thing for your community. And I want to ask too, are, are there quite a few youth that serve on the board of this? So, cause you, you formed a new nonprofit, I'm, I'm guessing, right?

Yes. Yep. We did.

So does that.

And we—

does that board have, like, is that part of your bylaws or your articles of incorporation that you have, like, set numbers of, um, student representation or youth representation?

Yes, we have 2 youth on the board of directors, and I think it's a— right now it's a 9-person board, I believe. And so 2 of them, um, senior high school and the age of your high school. Currently, the senior high school has been on for a couple years, um, and I think The other one came on shortly after she did. And they're both students who are highly engaged, like since the beginning. And so it's been so fun to watch them grow over the last few years and see where they're at now is just incredible.

Well, of course, I just think— and then the fact that you're like, and some of them want to move back and I'm thinking, well, of course they do. They want— they want to come back to a community that cared enough about them to ask them, to serve them and give them opportunities to, because like all we're talking about here, and again, I'll just say this, like if, if in your community, it's not youth that need engagement, like all people need belonging. Every person needs belonging. And in fact, like I was just, I'm, I'm doing a keynote in a couple of weeks and I was thinking about the fact that the Surgeon General of the United States talked about social isolation. And the fact that that is as damaging to a person's long-term health outcomes as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. That is a surgeon— that is the United States Surgeon General's warning about social isolation. And so in our rural communities where I think sometimes we just kind of assume that nobody's isolated, 1 in 5 people are socially isolated to that damaging kind of level. And so I just think it It speaks to the fact that everybody in a community wants to show up, give of themselves, be a part of something bigger than themselves, and make a contribution. You know, that's what service looks like. And you feel like you've found either your people or your thing. That's those, all of those things spark belonging. Um, so it makes perfect sense that you've got youth that are even already saying they want to come back. What an amazing thing. And I just, I, I, I'm so grateful that you came on to talk about all of this. So I, As we're thinking about this and talking about these things, I'm sure some of the people listening are like, so can we like, can they like hire you to come and talk in their community and like share what you've done? If people wanna learn from you, what's the best way other than just hearing this story? You know, what's the best way to learn from you?

Absolutely. So we do offer the services where we will come and actually train you and give you all the tools on how to do this in your community. I incorporate the storytelling as part of it. Like, here's what we did, but you're a different community, right? You're, you're going to want to really think about what you need, and we're going to give you this framework and these tools on how you can do this based around what is happening in your community and what is the greatest need there and where are those strengths and opportunities. And so we partner with organizations all the time, um, to come in. We're all over Minnesota, uh, to come in and help train them on process, like how can they get these tools, how can we give them those, because that's really what they need. They know what the problems are, um, they just need to understand the process and have tools to be able to make it happen. And so we can come in alongside, teach them, train them, give them the tools. Then we develop the software to make grant writing easy, especially for rural communities, because that's who's most impacted, is new organizations, small rural communities. Um, and so we have the ability to come in and provide all of that, uh, to make it easy, like, so that you don't have to do it the hard way like we did. We also have, um, we just did a youth conference, a Youth Transformation Conference, where we shared an entire toolkit on how do you create a center like this. Um, it comes with, um, it's 4 hours of training that are live recording, and then there's about 5 hours of training that is recorded separately that access to for 30 days. So you can still purchase it, and you have that access for 30 days, and you get an entire toolkit including the bylaws, articles of incorporation, policies and procedures toolkit, volunteer management, everything so that you don't have to recreate the wheel. And you get to hear from the, like, tons of different adults as well as the youth about the impact and the different tools. We also have Beth Pridey, who does a training in there on capital Capital Campaigning. How do you capital campaign?

Love that.

And so that's great.

Yeah, yeah, that's fantastic.

And so all of this information, the best way to contact us to have us come speak, to train, because we also do motivational speaking and public speaking where we share stories and work with people to really inspire their community. But the best way to contact us is go to our website, creatingcommunityconsulting.com. There are different links on there. One of them you're going to see is like our main page. We are— you're going to see a contact form on there. If you go to our AI Grant Accelerator page, you're going to see all the information about the grant writing software and tools. And just reach out, and we'd love to set up a call with you, and a free call with you, and figure out what it is that you are looking for. How can we help meet your needs? And, and prepare you to be able to do this work, um, better and make it easier.

Oh, that's incredible. Okay, so you had a couple little moments of breaking up, ironically, right at your, uh, website. But we, we will link to all of these things so nobody even needs— we don't need to recap that. But I have a quick question. You— so you were talking about this, um, Youth Transformation event. So did you say that we're able to— we're able to purchase the live recordings of it, but is that only for a period of time, or is that going to be something that that you'll just leave up on your website until you do the next one or something?

So we are leaving it up for one more week that you can purchase and have access for 30 days, and then we are taking the recordings and reformatting a little bit so that into the future there will be a permanent option that you can purchase.

Okay, that's great to know because by the time this thing actually— the— as by the time people are listening to this, the one week will have been Um, so I just wanted to be sure that, you know, people might have to keep— is there, do you have a newsletter or like a way to stay in touch with you? Like an email? Can people subscribe to like an email to get updates from you or anything like that? Okay. That would be a great way for people to do that if they're interested in your permanent option, right?

Yes. So we will have it, um, on our, on the AI Grant Accelerator and there's a member portal. And so you'll be able to see it there as an option to purchase. And so it'll be up and running and, um, Oh, perfect. Go to our website, you can get your name on— there's a— you can download 111 places to find grants.

Yeah, I saw that. That sounds— that's incredible. 111 places to find money.

You, uh, our software, we developed a grant finder, um, within it, a work plan developer, and an organizational profile. And our grant finder, we leverage the power of AI and put it into a closed network. And so that it really hones in on your organization. So we have a list of things you can research, which is great, but then also we want to work with you to fill out an organizational profile so we can really narrow down like what are the things that you should be looking at. Sure.

Yeah. Karen, I, it's just wildly impressive. I mean, seriously, you have accomplished so much in the past couple of years and I just, I now I have to make a trip up to You.

Yeah, we would love to host you.

I think, uh, I think you have given so many, um, well, again, it's just, it starts with your personal story and, and just saying, you know, you don't want any other kid in your community to feel like they have nothing to do and nowhere to go. Um, and so, you know, just thank you for channeling your own personal experience, doing good with it, meaningful community work. It's just, it's super special. And the kids, the youth of Frazee are lucky to have you cheering them on and encouraging them and giving them not only a place to be, but a voice.

Yeah.

We hope you love this episode of the Growing Small Towns show. It's been incredible.

And as we were recording the event, I got to hear these stories of impact on their lives. And, you know, you get all teary-eyed and you're like, oh, I remember when we first started working with you and you barely speak. And now here you are, like, right, right, doing big things. Um, it's just incredible.

So it's amazing. Thank you so much for your time today. Thank you for sharing this story. Um, and we will make sure we link to all the things so everybody can come and learn from you. Well, thank you so much.

I love following you, Rebecca. Um, yeah, and seeing what you're doing there too.

And I'm like, we're right here living our best lives. As crazy as it sounds, but we are growing small towns, growing small towns. We are growing small towns. We are growing small towns.