Community capacity was mentioned over and over in a variety ofways. One observed that "differences between communities" was interesting to learn, along with the realization that "appearances can be deceiving." Another young person said learning "how to improve communities (by) working with others" was helpful. "I'm learning that I can do a lot of stuff in my community," said another. "I don't need to go to Denver" so often. In a similar vein, another commented that "our community has to offer that I didn't know about."

Others mentioned specific skills, such as how to organize a project and asset mapping. Technology-related knowledge and skills were mentioned prominently, as well, especially use of the Internet. But one young person said it was good to learn how to "use the technologies you already have."

The technology demonstrations proved extremely popular with students. At one workshop, the tech talk was done by a local teacher who explained his avocation as an e-commerce entrepreneur. One of his products is a disk containing the list of websites selling Beanie Babies, a $10 product that he had sold in a quantity of 2000 in the last six months. "You don't need to move away to make big bucks," he told the students. Another disk contains names of "one million wholesalers" worldwide. He passed around a wad of envelopes from overseas buyers with the foreign checks still in them as proof of the profitability of Internet-based business. "All I am doing," he said, "is selling information on the Internet."

Through project planning, teams learned that the information highway was available to every community, either already installed or so close by that it would cost peanuts to hook into. Technology demonstrations also taught teams a lot about distance learning and other uses of telecommunications technology.

Reflections of Members from Disqualified Teams

Two youths who were members of teams that were disqualified were asked to reflect on their experience even though no project was funded.

A participant from Trenton, Nebraska, said that many people in the area are dissatisfied. "From the beginning, many felt that it was too much work to do for so little money when we could just get' free money' from a local foundation." From a personal perspective, she had a much different conclusion, however:

"As for myself, the experience was/is priceless. I have really learned a lot throughout the whole process that will definitely be of value in later experiences."

A high school student from Stratton, Nebraska, cited both negative and positive outcomes. "The most negative, of course, is that we don't receive any money-that doesn't make many people happy, but I don't think they were seeing the big picture. The Kellogg Foundation had the money there as a motivator for us to go to the workshops, and the workshops were there to learn through(out) the project--I think that was valuable in itself." He added that the knowledge and experience gained "is just as valuable to me as the $15,000 we would've received."

This student attended the session in Battle Creek with Round 2 teams. The new teams "really appreciated all of the help and tips they received from me, and it made me happy to help them out by telling them what best worked in our Cluster and what didn't... And that is what the project really wanted us to accomplish-helping others-and I think in that we were very successful."