City Council hosted a public hearing for Central Farm Service project
St. James Plaindealer
At Tuesday, July 6, St James City Council meeting the council honored Curt and Monica Rogers with the good neighbor award for all they did when owning the St. James Dairy Queen and now that they are retiring they are being honored for being the place to be to get a sweet treat in the community.
Before hearing new business items the council paused the meeting to hold a public hearing for the Central Farm Service Project (CFS) tax increment financing district. Shannon Sweeney headed the hearing explaining the plan for the financing district will be a property tax for a section of vacant land on which CFS would build new facilities.
Food shelf announced their produce distribution days
St. James Plaindealer
Watonwan County Food Shelf has announced their summer produce distribution days. This years distribution will be at Memorial Park from 5 to 7 p.m. July 8 and 22, August 12 and 26, and September 9 and 23.
Second Harvest Heartland is working with the food shelf again this year to bring produce for the distribution. Produce that is distributed is based on what is in season. Second Harvest Heartland partners with local farmers, commercial growers, other leaders and community members throughout the State of Minnesota to help rescue produce that would otherwise go un-harvested. We typically get eight pallets of fresh produce, said Katherine Petty, Director of Watonwan County Food Shelf. One of them is usually potatoes and one of the pallets is fresh onions. The other six vary between whatever fruit or vegetable is in season.
Going back to school after COVID-19
St. James Plaindealer
As of Thursday, July 1 Governor Tim Walz no longer has the state of emergency executive orders power after having it since the beginning of the pandemic, because the Minnesota legislators ended it during their session on Wednesday, June 30.
Walz emergency power made schools go into distance learning at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. But with the emergency power ending this means schools will be going back to pre-pandemic operations.
Before planning for next school year starts, schools are looking at what they need to bring kids back to school in person and what losses students had this past school year. To help with that schools have received money from the American Rescue Plan’s Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund. Superintendent Steve Heil said these funds can help will with the summer learning to help catch students up with what they missed this year because of COVID, and to bring in additional teache
Watonwan County vaccine rate: How many people have been vaccinated? stjamesnews.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from stjamesnews.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
St. James Plaindealer
Butterfield-Odin School District on May 24 found out they won a classroom set of Chromebooks through a Trafera contest: Trafera Give Back 2021.
Trafera is a technology company that works with teachers and schools to drive students achievement by having software made for them.
Staff first learned about this contest from Technology Coordinator Aaron Wollschlager back in April. The contest gave participating schools a prompt for students and teachers to make a video saying what their school would do to transform their learning with the new classroom set of Chromebooks.
“A staff member wrote lyrics to mimic the Fresh Prince of Bel Air theme song,” said Lauren Collier, a social studies teacher. “A music class re-created the Fresh Prince of Bel Air soundtrack, and then a student rapped the lyrics over the top of the music.”