Switch - Chip Heath [27]
“We’d been in decline for ninety years,” said Randy Parry, a longtime resident who taught a business class at the local high school, coached the varsity basketball team, and ran an ice cream parlor on the side.
At Howard High School, the students had just finished reading a book about the death of rural communities in Iowa. The students said, “That’s us, it’s just seventy years from now,” according to Parry. “So in class they started asking, ‘How could we change this?’”
Imagine the decision paralysis in this situation. Think of how many factors influence a town’s health: its history, its demographics, its location, its economic base, its weather, among countless others. The problem was simply too complex for anyone to solve. And it wasn’t for lack of motivation—there wasn’t one person in Miner County who wouldn’t have jumped at the chance to help rejuvenate the community. The Elephant herd was ready to move. But where? What can a few people do to restore an entire county?
The students started investigating the situation, designing a survey and distributing it to a sample of Miner County’s 1,000 registered voters. One finding in particular disturbed them: They discovered that half of the residents were shopping outside the county, driving an hour to Sioux Falls to shop in larger stores.
If Miner County was going to be reborn, its economy would need a boost. Most of the things that would boost an economy—investment, entrepreneurship, immigration—were out of the students’ control. But they had uncovered one thing that was very much in their control: spending money locally. They had found their first rallying cry: Let’s keep Miner dollars in Miner County.
Parry urged the students to present their findings to the community. The students accepted the challenge and began to put together a presentation.
The students’ newfound interest in revitalization dovetailed with the efforts of others in the community. A group of other Miner County citizens had been hosting a series of meetings intended to get county residents talking about the future. They held five gatherings, some in the high school and some in people’s homes, and they invited a cross section of residents: farmers and businesspeople and ministers and retirees. They challenged each other: What can we do to energize Miner County?
The issues raised were all over the map: Why does our town look so shabby, with rusty cars on the street? Why should a farmer get a subsidy when a businessperson doesn’t get a subsidy? Why don’t we have a more thriving Main Street? Many of the issues were TBU, unsolvable by the community. Many required investment, but with a limited pool of tax dollars to draw from, it wasn’t clear where they’d find the money. But there were a few things they knew they could take into their own hands.
A gas station owner in the town of Fedora, population 150, complained that residents years ago had cut down a lot of diseased trees—stumps were still littering the area, making Fedora look run-down and sad. The group of concerned citizens decided to deal with the stumps in Fedora. One Saturday, farmers carrying chain saws rode into Fedora on their tractors and loaders. Other residents made sandwiches and cookies for the workers. In a single day, the group dug up four hundred stumps.
Kathy Callies, who was heading up the kitchen crew that day, said it was amazing to see fifty people, ages ranging from 5 to 95, come together to do something for their community. Callies recalled that by the end of the day, “People felt like, ‘Look at what we did in a day.’ And when you’ve dug up stumps together and you start to realize you have shared ideas about what you want the community to be, then things start to happen.” (Notice that the log-clearing day had powerful Elephant and Path elements, as well. The flush of victory—of making a difference—gave the Elephant strength to continue. And the strong support of the community made the Path