our future.

Today I had an awesome opportunity to talk my favorite talk with Windom Area High School Seniors--the graduating class of 2011.  The best part of the day was not talking about all the great things Finding Windom is doing, but discussing Windom from their point of view.  I'm going to be brutally honest, Windom, these kids don't find Windom to be very exciting, and this is a problem!  For a lot of rural areas, and especially Cottonwood County, the amount of out migration happening is absurd.  Our children don't view Windom as a place of opportunity and success, so they go elsewhere to find it.

Of course we need them to go off to college and get their degrees or learn trades, but then we need them to come back.  So how do we do this?  They need to see our community as successful, innovative and thriving.  They may not be able to pinpoint right now as they head off to explore the world exactly what they want in life or in a place, but someday they will have to make a choice, and Windom should be on that list.  We need to get these kids involved in the community.  We need to show them all the possibility within these city limits because there are a lot of them, but they can't see them right now.  It took me 10 years to see the opportunity in Windom, I don't want it to take that long for them.  I challenge you, Windom, to talk about and show to our students all the positives of our community--help them Find Windom.