Five of the six MIRA teams described a very strong identity and attending the workshops together enhanced the bond among them. There were also stories shared about the increased visibility of the team "back home" and obvious pride among team members to be part of the MIRA group. This positive attitude maintains momentum for citizen activists and also helps recruit new members.
Perhaps the most significant community capacity built by the MIRA experience in Idaho was the capacity to collaborate. As Jim Birdsall mentioned, "Central and northern Idaho never worked together before. I've never seen this happen among these towns." In fact, there has been continuing discussion about a cluster-wide project of some sort, and one reason for the decision to hold some type of reunion for the teams is to put that proposition forward to the entire group.
Breaking down the isolation has been noted by a number of service providers in the area. The Idaho Rural Development Council and the outreach arm of Lewis-Clark State College, both institutions with the mission to serve these communities, have noted the new connections among the MIRA communities. There seems to be a change in the way the communities, as consumers of these rural development services, are connecting with the providers. Now a town like Bovil can discuss the services that the town of Council has received, or call a MIRA colleague in Priest River to get the name of a resource person at the university.
These team members have worked within their communities to stay connected to others, appraise them of the MIRA process and validate the team's ideas for projects.
In addition, they've consulted with each other, especially those teams with similar projects, and have begun to see each other as resources. At each workshop, the check-in time or a version of show and tell was extremely important to each team. At the first workshop, teams were friendly and informal but cautious and focused on the presenter as the main source of information. By the last workshop, team members were obviously very comfortable and familiar with one another and much more interested in each community's project and progress than the workshop presenter.
Many new relationships were influenced by the MIRA experience. The Priest River team offers an excellent example of how their project has led to new partnerships. While the Priest River team was hard at work adapting a small USFS building to become a Visitors' Center, the team was approached by another regional project focused on land stewardship.
This project, funded with $3,000,000 from the federal government, has contracted with the MIRA team for local assistance and their services at the Visitors' Center as an information source on the project. The team has also forged a new partnership with a regional library in a larger town 40 miles away to match a $30,000 grant and bring more library services to Priest River. Members of the team describe these two partnerships as direct outgrowths of the MIRA project and applications of the networking skills they've learned. They also commented on the fact that both projects--land stewardship and the regional library-were aware of the Idaho Cluster and MIRA.
The Council team has also forged new relationships with their local school district. Described as very separate from the community and with a superintendent that did not encourage any community involvement, the school is now serving as a partner for the Council Learning Center (the team's project).
The Adams County Economic Development Council is also a new partner in the Learning Center and one that developed as the team worked on the project and realized that it was a good match. The Council team also managed to network with the local office of the USDA Rural Development to get furniture donated for the Learning Center and some funds and support for the local RC&D.
