Shickley, Neb., probably looks much like other small towns in the Midwest. There’s a main street with a few businesses, a school and community pride. When you actually count the number of residents, well, by most standards, it’s a very small place.
“We have 340 in town and our school district, and we figure there’s about 630 people in our school district, and basically that’s considered our community – our school district,” says local resident Richard Walter.
But Shickley is anything but small. Community members bill it as a “big, little town.” However, turn back the clock a couple of decades and there may have been some doubt if the town and school would survive. That’s when local residents began the Shickley Community Foundation – a group with the purpose to raise money to support local causes, grow the community and help businesses thrive.
“We started raising an unrestricted endowment where we don’t touch the principle, but we spend the interest each year in grants,” says Walter.
Other communities do something similar, but this town of 340 people was determined that they could truly change their future by investing in it locally.
“The last grant cycle we went over $570,000 that we’ve granted out in the last 20 years,” Walter says. “In a community of 340 people that’s made a big, big impact.”
That’s over $500,000 in projects community members have funded just from the interest on the money they’ve raised, but there’s more. While they were raising funds for the endowment, they were also securing funds for other projects in town such as a new community center and an attractive new veterans’ memorial. One major initiative was a partnership between the Shickley Community Foundation and the local school.
“We’ve started a day care center and early education center, and that’s really been a boon to the community,” says Walter. “We have a number of young families moving to town, a number of young families staying in town because there’s day care.”
Walter says the No. 1 priority is to keep the local school, which they’ve done, and in the process they’ve found ways to provide the amenities that are attracting and retaining the future generation of residents. And they’ve done it all by sharing their story, one on one with local families and securing donations that have, in turn, secured their future.
“I told guys when we were in the middle of these campaigns, ‘You know, if we would have tried to do some of this stuff with tax money you would have tarred and feathered us and rode us out of town,’” he says. “But I know you’re helping us every chance you get, and it’s because we’re doing things you want done and you recognize the value in that.”
There’s still much work to be done, but when Richard walks the Shickley streets and reflects on where they began, this community truly has much for which to be thankful.
“We’ve accomplished stuff that we’d have been afraid to dream of in the last 20 years,” says Walter.
Thanks to the work of the people of Shickley and the local community foundation much has been accomplished – local organizations have been supported, businesses have remained open, and young families have been inspired to make the community their home. It truly makes this place a big, little town.
