Community-Based Education and Rural Development. Site Visit to Nebraska. Rural Funders Working Group Case Study.

In September 2000, grantmakers from around the country traveled to three Nebraska communities--Albion, Crete, and Henderson--to see how community-based education can positively affect the economic, environmental, and cultural development of a rural community. In Albion, the school is an open laboratory in which students, teachers, and parents work together to preserve the culture, environment, and quality of life cherished by residents of this remote Nebraska community. Community-based education in Henderson reflects the Mennonite faith central to its history and builds upon a spirit of cooperation that is the cornerstone of this community's successes. Henderson kept its school in the community by merging with a neighboring school system and developed cooperatively-owned telecommunications and recycling businesses that operate in a number of rural communities. in Crete, community-based education resulted in a new one-stop, multiple services facility that grew out of a partnership of local government, the school, businesses, and philanthropy. Three lessons were learned from the trip. The community school is vital to the survival of rural communities, not only for teaching positive values and cherishing a vanishing way of life, but also for helping the community focus on intergenerational communication that leads to leadership development and potential retention of youth. The community school can be an incubator for small business development. Youth and the community learn the values of collaboration, cooperation, and communication through community-based education. (TD)