Tuttle Rural Innovation Center
Report date
November 2021
What has been most instrumental to your progress?
Since the beginning of the grant period to the end of the first year (7/1/20-6/30/21), several key activities were undertaken and successfully completed to move forward TRIC. They include:
**Engaging in Creative Placemaking
After securing a team from the National Civilian Conservation Corps, additional funds from the North Dakota Council on the Arts, and engaging with artist Kim Jore, TRIC was able to make several improvements to the facility's grounds - particularly the entrance. This included installing an artistically painted tractor reflective of the region's landscape; installing a gazebo for an outdoor seating space; and partially completing a future history room. Further, TRIC was able to host a large North Dakota-based musician concert and water color painting classes, which drew in attendees from around southern and central North Dakota to highlight the region's heritage and folk arts traditions.
The visual representation of progress has reinforced the community's confidence in the project, especially after they were able to see tangible steps forward, rather than just hearing about the internal capacity that was continually invested in.
**Engaging in Creative Placemaking
After securing a team from the National Civilian Conservation Corps, additional funds from the North Dakota Council on the Arts, and engaging with artist Kim Jore, TRIC was able to make several improvements to the facility's grounds - particularly the entrance. This included installing an artistically painted tractor reflective of the region's landscape; installing a gazebo for an outdoor seating space; and partially completing a future history room. Further, TRIC was able to host a large North Dakota-based musician concert and water color painting classes, which drew in attendees from around southern and central North Dakota to highlight the region's heritage and folk arts traditions.
The visual representation of progress has reinforced the community's confidence in the project, especially after they were able to see tangible steps forward, rather than just hearing about the internal capacity that was continually invested in.
**Installing a Demonstration Garden & Fruit Orchard
With support from the ND Department of Agriculture and Dakota College at Bottineau, TRIC planted a homesteading berry garden to highlight the region's roots and demonstrate alternate growing practices, as well as a fruit tree orchard. This, too, adds to the community's Creative Placemaking plan, along with the added potential to engage community volunteers in the maintenance of the berry garden and fruit tree orchard. It also serves as an opportunity for the TRIC Coordinator to engage in discussions with residents around nutrition and food security utilizing the fruit produced in the orchard and berry garden.
TRIC is hopeful that the produce from the garden and orchard can be leveraged as tools for future nutrition education classes, conversations around food security of senior residents and low-income residents, as well as utilized to teach and raise awareness of the potential for value-added ag manufacturing within the facility.
With support from the ND Department of Agriculture and Dakota College at Bottineau, TRIC planted a homesteading berry garden to highlight the region's roots and demonstrate alternate growing practices, as well as a fruit tree orchard. This, too, adds to the community's Creative Placemaking plan, along with the added potential to engage community volunteers in the maintenance of the berry garden and fruit tree orchard. It also serves as an opportunity for the TRIC Coordinator to engage in discussions with residents around nutrition and food security utilizing the fruit produced in the orchard and berry garden.
TRIC is hopeful that the produce from the garden and orchard can be leveraged as tools for future nutrition education classes, conversations around food security of senior residents and low-income residents, as well as utilized to teach and raise awareness of the potential for value-added ag manufacturing within the facility.
**Completing a Gathering Space & Hosting the First Annual Quilt Show
Through additional support of the North Dakota Department of Commerce, a community gathering space and annual arts and culture event was created. With the closure of the Tuttle Town Cafe due to COVID, residents were lacking a place to gather, build community, and engage in fellowship. TRIC rehabilitated one of its vacant classrooms into a community room, complete with a piano, sitting space, card/lunch/coffee table, coffee cart and toaster, and a small play area for children. The community room has been a resounding success, with residents gathering in the space nearly 3 times per week. With the additional support from the Department of Commerce (which was matched 1-1 by the available 'test and implement' project budget in the Community Innovation grant), TRIC was able to plan and host its first annual quilt show, which featured over 60 quilts from area residents. The quilt show was very well-received by not only residents from Kidder County but also residents in surrounding counties.
Through additional support of the North Dakota Department of Commerce, a community gathering space and annual arts and culture event was created. With the closure of the Tuttle Town Cafe due to COVID, residents were lacking a place to gather, build community, and engage in fellowship. TRIC rehabilitated one of its vacant classrooms into a community room, complete with a piano, sitting space, card/lunch/coffee table, coffee cart and toaster, and a small play area for children. The community room has been a resounding success, with residents gathering in the space nearly 3 times per week. With the additional support from the Department of Commerce (which was matched 1-1 by the available 'test and implement' project budget in the Community Innovation grant), TRIC was able to plan and host its first annual quilt show, which featured over 60 quilts from area residents. The quilt show was very well-received by not only residents from Kidder County but also residents in surrounding counties.
Key lessons learned
The first lesson that TRIC has learned throughout the entirety of the process is that follow-through is incredibly important to gaining and maintaining the community's trust.
With the first Community Innovation grant received, a great deal of work had gone into asking the residents of Tuttle and the surrounding communities in Kidder County what their big ideas were and what they viewed as opportunities and threats of the region. We asked so many questions to receive input without the ability or resources to begin implementing actions based on their feedback. With the second Community Innovation grant, we have been able to build upon the input received in order to deliver on all of the great planning work that had been done. This includes capacity building efforts, programmatic efforts, and visual representations of progress.
With the first Community Innovation grant received, a great deal of work had gone into asking the residents of Tuttle and the surrounding communities in Kidder County what their big ideas were and what they viewed as opportunities and threats of the region. We asked so many questions to receive input without the ability or resources to begin implementing actions based on their feedback. With the second Community Innovation grant, we have been able to build upon the input received in order to deliver on all of the great planning work that had been done. This includes capacity building efforts, programmatic efforts, and visual representations of progress.
The second lesson learned is that it is incredibly important to develop a leadership and volunteer pipeline, which can be especially difficult in frontier counties. With TRIC, progress was stalled due to staff turnover and turnover within the organization's board of directors. In rural communities, it is not uncommon for a single individual to wear multiple hats, but during COVID and a time of uncertainty, those hats became too many for some to bear. Ensuring TRIC's approach to the Community Innovation grant's scope of work is a regional effort, with broad representation across several counties, will mitigate some of the impact of turnover and, hopefully, build a stronger volunteer and staff pool.
Reflections on inclusive, collaborative or resourceful problem-solving
Being resourceful has been the most important element leveraged in order to make progress. For a significant period of time (about 9 months of the grant's first year), TRIC was without a Coordinator. Because of this, the organization leaned heavily on partner organizations and their staff to move the grant's activities forward. Additionally, through those partnerships, outside funds were able to be leveraged and matched to magnify the impact of the Community Innovation grant. Further, to sustain the impact of the work completed to date, the networks and available resources of engaged volunteers have been leveraged, specifically in regards to the concert, demonstration garden and orchard, quilt show, and creative placemaking plan.
Other key elements of Community Innovation
Inclusivity has likely been the least utilized element of the innovation process, specifically inclusivity when it comes to diverse populations other than low-income and senior groups. Much of Kidder County is homogenous, so there has not been a great deal of opportunity yet seized to bring in diverse programming or view points, with the exception of twice bringing in Indigenous artists and performers for programming. There is great opportunity for TRIC to partner with Indigenous populations, specifically on the foods piece around nutrition education, differentiated gardening techniques, and value-added ag manufacturing. This would honor the land that TRIC currently sits upon while providing opportunities for accurate community history acknowledgement and education for area residents.
Understanding the problem
TRIC has great potential to serve as a replicable model for other communities as to how resourcefulness, inclusivity, and collaboration can be utilized to bring about innovation in geographically disadvantaged areas. This continuation of this work has made much more clear the need to coach community champions, board members, and TRIC staff members around how to navigate the nuances of small towns and their power dynamics; select high ROI activities so as to not burn out volunteers and staff members; and continually communicate, transparently, the progress (or lack thereof) of projects with community members. Misinformation and misunderstandings can often de-rail projects like TRIC at any stage of their development, and, because of the number of residents in small towns, misinformation and misunderstandings can travel quickly. Selecting a diverse set of strong community champions is needed as TRIC moves forward, so that a more united front can be seen.
If you could do it all over again...
A piece of advice that could have been provided at the beginning of the grant would have been to invest more time to sustain partner buy-in, especially with the workforce issues facing North Dakota, which has made it difficult to find and retain staff. TRIC's partners have supported the organization from the beginning of the innovation process and are critical in TRIC's future success.