Four Rural Communities Named Great Strides Award Winners for Innovative Steps to Reduce Poverty

Eagle Butte, South Dakota; Elk City, Idaho; Glendive, Montana; and Roseburg, Oregon Each Awarded $100,000 ST. PAUL, Minn., Jan. 25 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --

The Northwest Area Foundation today announced winners of its 2008 Great Strides Awards, recognition given to communities that have designed and benefited from creative models of long-term poverty reduction. Their innovative approaches include an agricultural marketing cooperative, self-help housing, low interest loans to Native American businesses and a leading edge forest restoration project intertwined with poverty reduction. Each community will receive a $100,000 award for their successes to date.

This year's winners are: -- Eagle Butte, South Dakota -- Four Bands Community Fund -- Elk City, Idaho -- Framing Our Community, Inc. (FOC) -- Glendive, Montana -- Community GATE -- Roseburg, Oregon -- Umpqua Community Development Corporation "The work of poverty reduction is neither quick nor easy. But these communities have shown that when they take responsibility for change, they can and do reduce poverty for the long term. The Great Strides Awards are meant to encourage them in their work and prompt other communities to adopt their successful models," said Kari Schlachtenhaufen, interim president and CEO of the Northwest Area Foundation.

Eagle Butte, South Dakota -- Four Bands Community Fund (Dewey County poverty rate 26 percent; Ziebach County 39 percent; focus area population 9,600) Anchored on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation, spanning two counties of extreme poverty, the Four Bands Community Fund is a nonprofit Native American community development financial institution that assists small business development through lending, technical assistance, business education and financial literacy. Since it was established in 2000, Four Bands has helped 70 businesses expand or get their start. These businesses have created more than 100 jobs in an area that has one of the highest unemployment and poverty rates in the entire country. Individual Development Accounts support home ownership, higher education and asset development. Youth Programs expose the next generation of leaders on the reservation to entrepreneurship and financial literacy.

Elk City, Idaho -- Framing Our Community, Inc. (FOC) (Idaho County, poverty rate 15 percent; focus area population 15,542) Bounded by the rustic Nez Perce National Forest, Elk City has suffered job loss and population decline with the downturn in the timber industry. Rather than consider the forest a moribund resource, town leaders did what may be surprising: they turned to diseased, dead and downed trees as a new source of prosperity. State and federal land management agencies, tribal governments and private land owners are partnering with the nonprofit organization, Framing Our Community (FOC), Inc., to remove ravaged timber resulting in hazardous fuels reduction and forest restoration. The long-range vision includes a small business incubator dedicated to creating value-added products out of the discarded wood. Switching from an extraction-based economy to a restoration-based economy has created new jobs for Idaho County, which the Bureau of Economic Analysis had previously identified as an area with a low income and high unemployment.

Glendive, Montana -- Community GATE (Dawson County poverty 12 percent; focus area population 8,650) Located amid Montana's agricultural heartland, Glendive is building on its farming roots to provide job training and new careers for those who are living below the poverty threshold. The town's Community GATE (Giving Assistance Toward Employment) model incorporates an agriculture marketing cooperative that encourages farmers to sell locally grown crops, such as beans and barley, right in the community to Western Trails Foods, a local food business. The long-range plan calls for a farm-to-table restaurant and microbrewery where residents could also receive college training for the culinary industry. The new venture would bring new jobs and a shared-use, commercial kitchen where people with low or fixed-incomes could process their food, and local producers could add value to their products. Community GATE also sponsors a farmer's market that serves low income and working families. A chef's training program and community garden at a regional prison were developed through a partnership with law enforcement and the local community college.

Roseburg, Oregon -- Umpqua Community Development Corporation (Coos County poverty rate 16 percent; Curry County poverty rate 13 percent and Douglas County poverty rate 15 percent; focus area population 9,563) Once known as the Timber Capital of the world, Roseburg has suffered with the decline in the industry. The picturesque city in the Umpqua River basin battled old housing, rundown commercial buildings and double-digit unemployment. The Umpqua Community Development Corporation has been successful in overcoming poverty through comprehensive programs to promote affordable housing, small business development, financial literacy training and jobs creation. Among the achievements is its "Self Help Housing" that offers no down payment, low interest mortgages for housing built with sweat equity and an IDA Dream Savers program that teaches young people to save money and learn about financial matters. The $100,000 award will go to community organizations which will decide how the funds will be used for community benefit. Each community has also been offered an additional $40,000 grant to finance their efforts to share their stories and lessons with other communities that may want to replicate or adopt the poverty reduction strategies.

Twenty-three communities in Northwest Area Foundation's eight-state region (South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Idaho, Montana, Washington, and Oregon) applied for this year's award. Six finalists hosted on sight visits from the Foundation, after which the four winners were named. Each submission was evaluated against five key criteria: -- Inclusiveness: involvement of community members from diverse sectors and groups -- Regional impact: interaction with and awareness of other communities facing similar issues in their geographic area.

-- Asset-based perspective: recognition of the community's existing strengths
-- Economic engines: involvement with businesses and other organizations that fuel the local economy
-- Leadership: efforts to nurture leaders from different public and private sectors, ages and genders

The Northwest Area Foundation is dedicated to helping communities in Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Washington and Oregon reduce poverty for the long term. These states were served by the Great Northern Railway, founded by James J. Hill. In 1934, Hill's son, Louis W. Hill established the foundation. The Foundation has $500 million in assets. To learn more, visit http://www.nwaf.org.