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Question: Hi! I recently found the Community Tool Box, and there is so much information available! I have a community betterment project in mind and would like your advice! I live in a very rural farming town of 300 individuals. One thing our community could use is a hangout for teenagers, young adults, and families. There aren't many things to do in the community beyond school sports and church activities, and though those are great, they aren't fit for everyone. Our community is relatively safe, though recently there's been some vandalism, drug issues, and petty thefts. I think this is due to the lack of things to do. Instead of doing something productive, they get into trouble.

The issue is there isn't a lot of places for a hangout. I think this needs to be an indoor building with multiple stories, maybe the top floor has a small movie theatre and the downstairs has a soda saloon with ice cream and french fries, and then a pool table and dart board or other entertainment things. The main priority is that it needs to be affordable, so I'd like this to be mostly a volunteer basis no-profit center.

There is an old building downtown, it used to be a hotel back in the 1800s. Of course, it's really rundown and needs a lot of work. But if it could be fixed up, it would be perfect! Our town is small and we don't have a lot of money. I would like to avoid going into debt, so I'd be interested in grants.

Do you have any advice for me? Do you think this would work and I could get grants for this?
Answer:

We are located in Kansas, where small towns are the norm (average city size is around 1,000 people). It has been my experience that people in farming communities will come together to ensure success of things like this, once they see it is needed and get past the "kids shouldn't be doing bad things" kind of responses they will initially have. You have some outstanding ideas for what to do, and a great idea for how to use currently unused space. People generally will do things for kids that they wouldn't do for themselves, so you may find some resources in the CTB like Chapter 6 (/en/table-of-contents/participation/promoting-interest) and Chapter 7 (/en/table-of-contents/participation/encouraging-involv...) to be useful.

Question Date: Mon, 11/06/2023