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FAIRMONT-- Kinship of Martin County has introduced a new series of courses with the goal of improving community resilience. The courses are being held each month with the next event scheduled for June 24.
Each event is organized by Kinship and another community organization and aims to teach community members useful resiliency skills. These partners can come from Kinship's existing ambassador program or elsewhere.
The first event was held in late April in collaboration with Community Health and Human Services of Martin and Faribault County and focused on adverse childhood experiences and trauma responses. The second event was held in mid-May wherein Deputy Sheriff Chris Gerhardt worked with attendees on deescalation strategies. Most events are held at Grace Lutheran Church.
While the courses are a new initiative, Kinship associate director Courtney Logwood said they're seeing more attendees at each event and expect to see even more at this month's event. The event will be held at Gomsrud Park on June 24 from noon to 4 p.m. The event will have bounce houses, games and meals for 500 attendees. During the event instructors from Crime and Self Protection Awareness Advisors will teach children safety skills such as how to avoid and escape abduction.
For the June event Kinship is collaborating with the Chain Lake Lodge of masons. The Masons will split the cost of the event and help serve food to attendees. Mason Josif Szucs said the lodge was trying to perform more community outreach and potentially interest new members.
"We're trying to (get) more community engagement, more light being brought to the lodge," said Szucs.
The event is also sponsored in part by Fairmont Hy-Vee which will be providing some of the meal which consists of hot dogs, chips and water.
Kinship already has plans for events lasting through the end of the summer. In July the organization is collaborating with the Martin County Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition to provide information about recreational cannabis ahead of its legalization in August. In August the organization is collaborating with US Bank to help attendees open bank accounts and teach financial literacy.
Logwood said Kinship aims to make each event as accessible as possible. At each of its event Kinship provides youth and adult attendees with a free meal as well as childcare for children up to age 18 and homework help with adult volunteers at events that focus on adult education.
"We can get everything completed for you so you can just absorb that information and then go home and think about it without having to worry about where (your) kids are going to eat, what (you're) going to do," said Logwood.
Each event also has an on-site interpreter and documents which are translated into Spanish ahead of time.
"We can't say we're having community resiliency courses and then say we're leaving out six percent of the people because they don't speak the language. We don't want to exclude anyone and as we find more language barriers ... we're doing our best to get in as many interpreters and translators as we can so we can reach as many people as we can," said Logwood.
While providing support to parents rather than to youth directly is in some ways a departure from Kinship's previous programming, Logwood emphasized the welfare of adults and children in families are often intertwined.
"We can support the kids but if the parents need help, what are we doing for them," asked Logwood.
The organization also incorporates feedback and suggestions into its plans for the courses; Kinship chose to incorporate help with financial services into August's session after hearing from parents who've been unable to open bank accounts and are trapped in a payday loan cycle.