Hi everyone! I fully intended to post much sooner but it has been a very busy couple of weeks. This is a big weekend in our household as my oldest is in the local middle school musical this weekend, ‘Teens in Tinseltown.’ So practices have increased along with homework and then you add in my youngest and my wife’s increased responsibilities at work and my pastoral duties… well it is very busy. So today’s post is an update on some things that I have written in past blogs.
Community soup kitchen… Two community soup kitchens have or will be coming on-line this month. The first began a few weeks ago at the Ligonier United Methodist Church in Ligonier and served, according to the News-Sun (our local paper) around 100 people. This is good news. The second will get started next Friday here in Kendallville at Trinity Church, United Methodist and is called ‘The Community Table.’ It is being sponsored by the Noble County United Way and hosted by Trinity. But it has been a community wide effort with input from many. Unemployment remains a problem and has risen to 17% here in Noble County which is the third highest behind Elkhart and Lagrange Counties who are, respectively, to the west and north of us. Now there has been some bright spots including a company out of Ligonier that has turned to making composite covers for certain kinds of rail cars and has reportedly made a deal with a railroad in Minnesota. But we are still hurting here. Even the church I serve has cut our budget and we are having to temporarily borrow some money from one fund to pay some bills.
School district changes… At their meeting on Wednesday night March 11th, the East Noble School board made the decision to close one elementary school, make all elementary schools k-6, and combine all 7th and 8th graders into one building. The vote, I believe, was unanimous. Another part of this plan will include staff cuts at all levels of the district though several retirements and resignations have already been announced and approved by the board. My wife’s position as an instructional assistant is uncertain until around May 1st when notices will be sent to those being laid off.
Hometown Competitiveness… The HTC program here in Noble County is continuing to gain steam as we move toward a formal launch later this month and into early April. The leadership ‘pillar’ of which I am a part has been meeting weekly to develop a survey to administer to a cross section of Noble County residents this spring. We have wrestled with definitions of words like ‘community,’ important concepts like ‘building capacity,’ and how long to make it (we are aim for 12 questions) as well as the type of survey to make. But it has been good work and I believe that a good survey will be coming soon!
Well that’s all for now… back to house cleaning! (Yes, this guy helps clean the house!)
Filed under: Rural Life and Ministry | Tagged: East Noble Schools, Kendallville Indiana, Ligonier Indiana, Noble County Indiana, rural development, rural life, The News Sun
