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Author: Blandin Foundation

Education Grants “fill the gap” for 328 students

By Blandin Foundation

With books stacked sky high in the back seat and a trunk that’s bungee corded shut, many young Minnesotans hit the road last month, putt-putting to their futures. The Minnesota Office of Higher Education recently reported that 77 percent of the state’s high school graduates attended college in 2012, up from 56 percent in 1996. At …

Forging a path for Itasca County’s future through conversation at first-ever Community Cafe

By Blandin Foundation

Itasca County educators, government, artists, law enforcement, business owners, environmentalists, social services providers and more gathered together on Tuesday to answer the question: What is the future we want to live in to? Participating in three 20-minute conversations, some over-arching themes surfaced: Care enough to ask for one anothers’ stories Expand Art of Hosting in …

Connect Itasca seeks to build the case for broadband expansion

By Blandin Foundation

A small rural clinic closes. A home buyer chooses to look elsewhere. A teacher can’t teach. While these situations seem unrelated and strangely paired, they all have one common denominator — broadband. Not what you expected? Here’s the skinny behind the stories: The Bigfork, Minnesota clinic, a satellite of Essentia, can’t upload patient files because …

Art of Hosting: Have conversations that matter

By Blandin Foundation

What kind of conversations need to happen in your community right now? Who would be at the table? Would it be the right people? What do people need to know before they can fully participate in the conversation? How would the conversation start? These are tough questions that are often times overlooked by organizers, but …

Digital storytelling: the megaphone for rural voice

By Blandin Foundation

Stories have connecting power. They give us a behind-the-scenes look into people’s lives. They invite us to relate to people on a human level and have the potential to inspire action. That might be why video is expected to be the dominant form of online content by 2017. In today’s Daily Yonder, TechSoup blogger Jim …

The Birthplace of Brain Gain: Mitchell, S.D.

By Blandin Foundation

Sometimes innovation springs from the strangest places – like a palace housing over 275,000 ears of intricately designed corn. Mitchell, South Dakota is home to the nation’s only Corn Palace and as Northern Minnesota author Aaron Brown says in his recent Daily Yonder article, While some might only know Mitchell as a tourist trap on …

Putting generational differences to work in rural Minnesota

By Blandin Foundation

Watergate. 9/11. JFK assassination. WWI. WWII. Y2K. What major events shaped the way you view the world? Chances are it depends when you were born. Similarly, the way you communicate was probably influenced by the technological advances that occurred as you were growing up. These influences, along with parenting trends, media, education, location, and general philosophy, shape …

Blandin Broadband Communities Strut Their Stuff

By Blandin Foundation

Colorful, dancing feathered figures and the hum of ancestral melodies filled the room as Fond du Lac (FDL) students arranged themselves in such a way that they created a cornucopia of technology. Brandishing iPads, they celebrated their Ojibwe culture, together with community members, through the creation of mobile applications. Held at the end of July, …

Albert Lea busts poverty myths to build community

By Blandin Foundation

What does poverty look like to you? For many, it looks like a crumpled-clothed, weathered-looking man holding flimsy cardboard sign with chicken-scratch writing. BUSTED MYTH #1: Not all poverty looks like this! In fact, poverty might look like your next door neighbor, the woman you say hi to in the grocery store or the child with …

Celebrating rural resiliency and passion across the U.S.

By Blandin Foundation

If you threw a dart at a map of the United States, it might get stuck in a canyon in the Southwest, perch on the peak of a prodigious mountain in the Northwest or skim swaying wheat fields of the Midwest. Regardless of where you land, it’s likely to be in rural territory. An astounding 72 …