Oldham, SD

This blog is provided by Sandy Smith, a local resident:

We were so glad we were able to be home in Oldham this past weekend (4th-6th)….What a “fun week-end!” Friday night Oldham Lutheran Church had their annual “Homemade Soup Supper”…the soup was “super” along with the french bread and homemade desserts…By being able to attend we had an opportunity to visit with community members we haven’t seen in awhile.
On Sunday the new Oldham Area Improvement Corporation held their first community Sunday dinner…..serving Pork, baked potatoes, corn, buns along with yummy homemade desserts. They made this fine meal open to anyone as there was not a set charge but just a free-will donation. This gathering also gave us an opportunity to not only enjoy this great meal with family but to also visit with our neighbors and friends!
Can you see now why I am happy we were home this past week-end? Actually we had a couple other special events we were able to take in also….I was able to attend a bridal shower held for Amber Huntimer Saturday morning …and we also were invited to a “surprise birthday party” held for our neighbor and friend Evelyn Holmvik by her family after church services Sunday morning in the Oldham Lutheran Church. Was she SURPRISED…YES! Her family did a great job with the party!
I would like to add that if you are ever hungry and see a meal being advertising in Oldham come join the fun and enjoy a great meal!

The Horizons Committees have been busy building partnerships and involving many groups and organizations in our efforts to address poverty in Oldham. The City council was asked to pay for half of the cost of the citywide clean up on May 2 which they agreed to do. The county commission has deeded property over to OAIC for the housing committee, the school district is allowing the use of the school gym for meetings and allowing internet to be installed for the Horizons group. Alliance Communications is installing and providing free high speed internet into the school gym for Horizons. Horizons Health Care Systems will be partnering with the community for health screenings and health education. Horizons and ORR students partnered together to have a food drive for the food bank. That involves many groups in the community including the churches and some other groups that support the food bank. Many other possibilities are being explored. 

Representatives of the various committees met in the regular monthly meeting with “Coach Martha” to report progress on the work over the past month. The convenience store committee met and discussed numerous aspects of developing a plan to get a new convenience store in Oldham. They have been investigating possible locations for a store. Several committee members went to the economic and entrepreneurship meeting in Forestburg. Several members of the committee also visited a couple of convenience stores and visited with the owners and managers of the stores to learn what has worked and not worked for the businesses. The housing committee is busy gathering information on possible tax delinquent property to ask the county to deed the property over to the OAIC to demolish the buildings and make the lots available for anyone who wants to build a new house. They have bids for demolishing two buildings and will be continuing with the efforts to improve housing in the community.

The Oldham Horizons Steering committee and Horizons Health Care Systems based in Howard SD have initiated a cooperative effort to educate the community on services available. How and when this will be done is still in the very early stages of discussion. These could include free health screenings for blood pressure, diabetes education and getting information to community members about the sliding scale charges that Horizon Health Care Systems provides so low income persons can afford health care. Oldham Horizons is looking forward to this new partnership and the possibilities for increased health awareness in the community.

The Oldham Food Pantry is operated by volunteers within the community and serve the Oldham and Ramona area. They have had the pantry in operation for many years and use the Oldham Lutheran Church for the collection and storage of the pantry items. Many thanks are to be given for the volunteers operating the pantry. They do this with out fanfare and have often not really even publicized their efforts for the sake of the privacy of the people they help. We do need to recognize their efforts and support the work being done by these wonderful volunteers. The following was given to me by one of the volunteers so we could post it on the blog.

” The Oldham Community Food Pantry delivered “Thanksgiving Baskets”  to 15 families the week before Thanksgiving.  These baskets included a turkey or hamburger plus sausage, potatoes, stuffing, peanut butter along with various other food items, non food items such as toilet paper, tooth paste & brushes, shampoo, all types of soaps plus many other items!  “Care Packages” were given to 2 households also.

      “Christmas Boxes” were also made up by the  Oldham Community Food Pantry and delivered before Christmas week to 17 households.   These boxes contained  among many other food items a ham and apples.  Non-food items were again included in the boxes and diapers were included in this outreach.  JC Penny’s Gift Certificates in the amount of $10.00  were given out to 21 children.”

The SADD(Students Against Destructive Decisions) and National Honor Society, which are organizations of the Oldham-Ramona School District, the Oldham Horizons Committee and the Oldham Area Improvement Corporaton formed a partnership to have a food drive for the Oldham Food Bank which serves both Oldham and Ramona. Pictured are Katy Morris, Alsion Eide, and Cyndi Hildebrandt with the food collected during the food drive.

The OAIC saw an opportunity to help community members when the Oldham-Ramona marching band needed new shoes. OAIC saw this a chance to help families that might be burdened by the expense of having to purchase the shoes. The school will keep the shoes and hope to be able to use them for several years. Pictured is Connie Bickett presenting the check from the OAIC to band director Donna Mathison. OAIC is hoping to build partnerships with local businesses and organizations to work on our action plans. During November the National Honor Society and SADD from the O-R high school will be partnering with the OAIC to sponsor a food drive for the Oldham food bank. There will be more on that later. The Oldham Area Improvement Corporation is a non-proft 501c3 corporation and was formed as a result of the Horizons Study Circles.