Active leaders create an active community

Gavin Harsh, McCook Community Foundation Fund

We have often heard the phrase, “Life is what you make of it.” This is also symbolized in the story of the “dash,” commonly heard at funeral services, representing the years between birth and death. The “dash” truly represents, “Do all you can, while you can, as we are not guaranteed a tomorrow.”

Evaluating those phrases through the lens of a community, there is little difference. If we want to make our communities the best they can be, we need to do all we can, while we can.

I have served on the McCook Community Foundation Fund Advisory Committee for the past five years with the past 18 months as treasurer. My time at MCFF has been nothing short of amazing! It’s astonishing to see volunteers rallying behind new projects and numerous active donors donating with a giving heart.

As we have embarked on journeys to improve child care, housing availability, people attraction, and leadership programs to massive capital projects that include a new pool, ballparks, and an updated YMCA, this truly is “McCook’s Decade.”

But how did we get here and where are we going?

All of these projects have taken a great amount of leadership and commitment that will make an everlasting impact in our community. However, as we look forward to the next six years of “McCook’s Decade,” there is more we can do.

We are entering a phase at MCFF with a greater yearly granting capacity, granting that can truly help and transform the community. While having more dollars available for projects, events and ideas is great for the community, a new problem arises. We need more people willing to dream up new ideas and programs and we need more people willing to get involved to take on these projects. Let’s make McCook the life of the party and we can do that by empowering others.

The “dash” of McCook is far from over. Instead, we need to continue building the “Hot Spot” in Nebraska and this will take more action. We will need an active community of supporters who want to work together to make things happen and we will need pioneers to think outside the box, to take a chance, to come up with a dream and a plan to make it happen. I think of some of the pioneers who got our communities to where they are today and there is no doubt they lived by the mantra, “Do all you can, while you can.”

I encourage those who hear the phrase, “Rural America is dead,” to remember those living in a rural area have the power to create a community that you love to live in. We live in a community where the people are kind and give with a grateful heart of their time, their resources and their expertise.

Anything is possible, when we get involved and we work together. We just need you and together we will make McCook and Southwest Nebraska the best place to call home!

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— Gavin Harsh is the only person to be a member of the McCook Community Foundation Fund’s youth group, Youth Change Reaction, while at McCook HIgh School and then 10 years later return to serve on the Fund Advisory Committee.