POWER OF

For half a century the Lakes & Prairies Community Action Partnership has been working to eliminate poverty in Clay and Wilkin counties through family and community building. That’s fifty years of providing comprehensive Head Start services to preschoolers from low-income families, fifty years of helping seniors stay in their homes, fifty years of helping parents find quality childcare, and fifty years of helping those in need put healthy food on the table. It all adds up to a tremendous amount of support and positive change.

And yet if there’s one birthday present Lakes & Prairies desires most as it turns fifty on August 3, it is greater familiarity among those in their service area with who they are and what they do. Because their agency comprises more than 30 programs and services, Lakes & Prairies staff sometimes find it challenging to share their story in a succinct way. It’s difficult to reduce their network of services and organizational partnerships to sound bites.

Words by Gwendolyn Hoberg

This intricacy is intentional; a key attribute of Lakes & Prairies. Lori Schwartz, director of operations, explained, “We empower families by giving them a combination of tools and supports as they work to achieve their goals―not ours. We engage communities because we know it is not one agency or program or service that creates opportunity but the combination of assistance and opportunities that together makes the difference in an individual’s or family’s life.” If the causes of poverty were simple, the solutions might be too. But Lakes & Prairies believes the complex reality of poverty necessitates a multi-faceted approach.

Lakes & Prairies was among the first Community Action Agencies to be incorporated during President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty in the 1960s. The agency’s three divisions are Head Start, Child Care Aware of MN Northwest, and Family & Community Services. Like Lakes & Prairies, Head Start is celebrating its 50th birthday this year. This national program of education for three- and four-year-olds was the first program of Lakes & Prairies back when its name was the Clay-Wilkin Opportunity Council.

Another program benefitting area children is Rainbow Bridge Safe Exchange and Visitation, which serves children and families in Fargo-Moorhead and the surrounding area. Rainbow Bridge is an example of how crucial partnerships―both formal and informal― are to Lakes & Prairies, Schwartz said. “Our relationships with local police departments, sheriff departments, the Rape and Abuse Crisis Center and many judges and lawyers form an important network that we, families and children can rely on.”

In the midst of Fargo-Moorhead’s cultural moment of entrepreneurial enthusiasm, something Lakes & Prairies likes to point out is that it has a history of being a start-up agency. “For instance, we were very much a part of forming the rural senior centers in towns throughout Clay County,” Schwartz said, “including helping them form and fund their own independent non-profit organizations. And we started WIC when there was no county agency doing that. Now there is. These programs, like many others, continue today but as other organizations. In recent years we have started new programs or services related to preventing homelessness, the exchange and visitation center and a free tax site. None of these were being offered by other organizations.”

As it turns fifty, the Lakes & Prairies Community Action Partnership is celebrating not only its service to those in need, but also how it is able to benefit Wilkin and Clay counties as a whole. “Just in our local service area in the last eight years, more than $10 million has been refunded to low– and moderate-income families, with an estimated 70 percent, perhaps more, of those dollars spent locally,” Schwartz reported. “That’s at least $7 million received by landlords, grocery stores, gas stations, and retail stores. That’s families having the down payment for a car so they can maintain their employment.” And that’s the power of partnerships to make a difference. [AWM]

Matthew’s Voice Project