‘Talk That Leads Somewhere’: Study Circles in Jackson, Minn.

by Brad Rourke

April 24, 2006 | | Jackson, Minnesota

Jackson is a welcoming community that promotes a healthy,  active lifestyle for all ages, values its youth, celebrates cultural diversity and experiences and nurtures a learning environment. (Jackson Vision Statement)

People in Jackson, a small southwestern Minnesota town of about 3,500, near the Iowa border, spent a long time together, over a year ago, articulating the community’s vision.

But, like in many communities across America, there is poverty in Jackson, and some people feel left out of the vision. Armed with their collective vision, Jackson residents are doing something about poverty.

For decades, Western Community Action, a community development organization located just over the state line in Iowa, had been working to eradicate poverty in Jackson. The organization looked back over years of work and came to a stark realization: It wasn’t having the effect it wanted.

 

Participants in a “Community Roundtable” in Jackson, Minnesota, get to know one another at their first meeting.

"We realized we had to stop doing for the community," said WCA Circles of Support Coordinator Greg Warner, "and start working with the community."

This watershed decision unlocked things in town like little before it had been able. The community spent time developing its vision. It created a Circles of Support program, where community members work with one another to assist in getting and staying out of poverty.

And it decided to try study circles, because they emphasize community members working together for change. A new discussion guide called Thriving Communities: Working together to move from poverty to prosperity for all was being tested in a few communities across the country. The Study Circles Resource Center developed the guide jointly with the Northwest Area Foundation, and the two organizations wanted to make sure it was ready for use. Jackson signed on to try it out.

Six study circles met five times each, about once a week, facilitated by trained community members. Three of the circles (made up of seniors) met at the Jackson Senior Dining center. Three others, made up of different people from all across the community including people in poverty as well as town leaders, met in a local church.

Some members of the community worried this was just going to be more talk, leading nowhere, said Warner, who coordinated the study circles (called "Community Roundtables" in Jackson). Some seniors, who had lived through the Great Depression, found it hard to imagine giving the label "poverty" to what they see around them.

"We really don't have poverty nowadays," one senior said. "Back in the Depression, everybody was in poverty and had to cooperate to survive. What we have now is classism, where some people benefit from others' poverty."

In all, 71 members of this small community took part in the study circles. "But," says Warner, "there was one more" circle. The local newspaper, the Jackson County Pilot, each week published questions from the Thriving Communities guide – along with verbatim answers from the study circles taken from session flip charts.

These questions and answers provided people who weren’t participating a window on what was happening within the study circles. They could see that the circles were tackling difficult subjects. This prompted conversations in the community that wouldn't have happened otherwise, Warner said.

"This was like a study circle involving the whole community," Warner said.

And the people taking part in the circles themselves were not just the "usual suspects" who always go to meetings. They reflected the mix of people in the community – including people who could be considered to be "in poverty."

At the end of the five circle meetings, all participants came together for an action forum. The "buzz" had grown, and many new faces showed up. Three members of the city council, the mayor, and two county commissioners attended.

"We've got a quorum!" one member of the city council joked that night.

The people at the action forum agreed to work together on 15 things to begin eradicating poverty in Jackson. Some were simple, such as mounting a multicultural festival to celebrate the wide variety of cultures and customs that can be found in Jackson. Some were a bit more complex, like forming a local community foundation in order to help fund local programs. All of the actions, though, were doable, and grew out of the community conversations that had taken place over the previous weeks.

These were real actions, things that could really be done. And just a few months after the action forum, seven of the 15 action items are a reality, including:

• A community foundation is up and running and already has approximately $13,000 in contributions.
• There is a grassroots group that connects with "official" civic life by writing letters to editors and office holders on important issues.
• There is an ongoing commitment to use dialogue for change. One concrete result of this is that community members have been invited to present a new plan to the city council for how, when, and whether security deposits are collected for new utility customers. The community had to make a big effort to convince officials to pay attention to community dialogue on this subject.
• A Resource Room -- owned by the county -- is now up and running, where people can drop off items and also pick up basic necessities such as dishes, pots, and pans. "It's seeing a lot of use," according to Warner.

But these aren't the only results. What else is different in Jackson?

"We have new leaders in the community because of what we are doing here,” says Warner. “People are volunteering for things that they had never been invited to before."

He pauses. "I attribute that to study circles."

Learn more: Poverty