How to get more Boulderites involved?
At last week’s storytelling event for Community Heart & Soul, Boulder historian Ellen Rae Thiel shared a fear that would echo through the evening: Boulder as a bedroom community.
“Hopefully, it doesn’t just become a place [where] you get a job somewhere else, and you don’t put your kids in school here, and you don’t come to any organizations and all of that,” she said. “I hope that it continues to be a good place to raise a family.”
Vermont-based Heart & Soul aims to revitalize small communities and early this year selected Boulder, along with Havre and Broadus, for a $10,000 seed grant and $10,000 matching grant.
“Our ultimate goal through this is to gather what people love about Boulder,” said Rochelle Hesford, event organizer and Executive Director at Southwest Montana Youth Partners. “Their hopes and dreams and ideas and concerns.”
As Heart & Soul’s Program Coordinator Samantha DeWit steps down from the position to fulfill other obligations, Hesford is on the look-out for a replacement. “Stepping away from my role was not an easy decision,” DeWit told The Monitor. “Ultimately, I recognized that the position deserved someone who could dedicate more time and focus than I was able to give.”
Hesford may not have a tough time finding a replacement, as Heart & Soul’s value and potential impact seem to be growing as the town faces a crisis of engagement. Thiel and two other Boulder residents, Sarah Layng and Sage Fadness, were interviewed by Heart & Soul volunteers Saundra Lowry and Kathy Schmitt at Thursday’s event.
Asked about the biggest recent change in Boulder, Thiel said that, nowadays, most Boulder residents work elsewhere. “They don’t get involved in organizations or that sort of thing,” she said. “You don’t see them at ballgames or anything.”
Boulder’s far from alone in this. Nationally, volunteerism has largely rebounded from a COVID dip to stay mostly stable since 2000. But church membership – a key source of civic engagement – has seen a steep decline, from 7 out of 10 in 1998 to less than half (47%) in 2020.
Theil felt Boulder folk had stopped attending church and other community events compared to the past and that organizations like women’s clubs had disappeared. Debbie Gabse and several other audience members expressed frustration at dwindling volunteers and being stretched thin through involvement in several different organizations, like Friends of the Library, The Heritage Center, Kiwanis Club, and others.
Similarly, in last week’s Monitor, Bruce Binkowski expressed concerns about waning interest in the Boulder Chamber of Commerce. Engaged Boulder folk seem increasingly at a loss on how to involve other community members, and on the causes of decreased participation.
Fadness, a 29-year-old carpenter, suggested that the internet had contributed to younger people’s reduced interest in participation. “A lot of people my age grew up with the internet and Netflix and streaming,” he said. “When you get off work, you’re going to relax and do that.”
He may have a point. Americans socialized and communicated with others less in 2024 compared to 2014: from 43 minutes to 35 minutes per day. Watching TV now accounts for half of all leisure time. One attendee feared decreased local involvement could drive away families.
“If we don’t have those things that keep young people here, we’re not going to have families to be raising here,” she said.
Gabse wondered how to get more new Boulder residents out of their homes. “How do we better connect with those people who have made Boulder their bedroom community?” she said. “How do we make them make this their community?”
All three interviewees also mentioned Boulder’s declining businesses, which Fadness tied back to community engagement. “My entire life, there really hasn’t been a lot of long-standing restaurants,” he said. “It’d be nice to see more of a family-friendly community center or restaurant…The River was really good for that.”
Fadness, who spent time in other small towns and in Las Vegas as part of a hip-hop music group, said he was happy to come back to Boulder. “I love the slow pace of a small town,” he said. He grew up as part of a ranch family on his grandpa Leroy and grandma Sandy’s ranch in the Boulder Valley.
Still, he felt there simply wasn’t much to do in Boulder or many organizations to become involved in. He thought an attraction that might bring people to Boulder, like a mini-golf or disc golf course, would be a good addition to the community. For Fadness and other residents, businesses can provide essential community gathering places.
Layng worried about sustaining Boulder’s businesses, which seem to have a short life-span. “Some of our buildings are empty – it concerns me that they are still empty,” she said. Layng grew up in Boulder and moved back after living for nine years in Sheridan with her husband, Clint. She is currently the athletic director, librarian, and head girls’ and boys’ track coach at JHS.
Layng mostly had positive thoughts about Boulder, appreciating the recent upkeep of the town’s aesthetics, the high school’s updated track and field, and the tight-knit community of the town. But she thought some of that family feeling went away as she raised her kids in Boulder. “I don’t think they have some of the connections, the same as I did,” she said, speaking of her daughters’ upbringing. “I just feel like parents maybe were more reluctant to send their kids out and ride bikes around and different things like that.”
Perhaps seeing a lack of shared spaces, Layng’s dream for Boulder was installing sidewalks around town and a walking and biking trail along the Boulder River. “I think that would just be so awesome because we have such a gorgeous area and great river,” she said.
Layng’s suggestion of another gathering space echoed the evening’s broader theme: finding ways to get Boulderites out and connecting. Towards the end of the evening, Hesford offered some advice. “One of the best ways to get me to come out and volunteer is to ask,” she said. “They feel like they’re wanted and they’re part of the community, so that’s what I would encourage.”
Heart & Soul will host another storytelling gathering on Sept. 25. Contact Rochelle Hesford at 406-225-3164 to volunteer for Heart & Soul or get details on their next event.
