Howard South Dakota The Program for Rural School and Community Renewal was started four years ago and it has flourished into 21 communities in South Dakota. Here's what one school is doing to keep their town alive. Take a stroll down Main Street of Howard South Dakota, from this view the town doesn't look much different than yours. But with a declining population, the community is banding together to keep their town alive. Howard became a rural challenge site four years ago and their program is trying to bridge the gap between adults and students by involving the high-schoolers in community projects and encouraging adults to become involved in the school.
Students work on several community projects.
And one success story is the cash flow project, where students sent out surveys to members of the community to figure out how much disposable income they had and why it wasn't being spent in Howard. The result was an increase in local spending. Even high-schoolers in Howard have seen an increased community spirit among their peers. The cash flow project isn't their only success, they've also created a rural resource center in the school where members of the community come and share their personal stories with the students. Their current project involves studying cancer clusters in miner county and they hope they can use this information to make their community a better place to live.