Small communities (like Haxtun!) are built upon commonwealth. There are 12 aspects of Commonwealth. No matter the size or financial status of the community, these twelve aspects can be found. The twelve aspects are sense of place, education, health, leisure and recreation, spirituality, history, renewable energy, foodshed, soil and mineral cycle, wildlife and the natural world, arts and culture, and the water cycle.
When completing commonwealth mapping for your community, it’s important to recognize the obvious aspects, and the not-so-obvious ones. I have lived in Haxtun, Colorado my entire life. For Haxtun, the most obvious one is sense of place. Haxtun holds two main town-wide events each year- Old Fashioned Saturday Night and Corn Festival. For these past two months, I have helped advertise and create content Old Fashioned Saturday Night. This event occurs once a year, on a Saturday in July. It’s a night for cruising main street in vintage cars, a street dance, food vendors and much more. There’s activities for kids and adults. Through advertising for this event, I discovered that Haxtun’s sense of place lies in these community events. It is through community members volunteering their time to these events, and coming out to these events to spend time with their friends, that a sense of place can be established. These events have looked a bit different this year due to Covid-19, but the entire community enjoyed coming together to plan these events during this complicated time.
The second aspect of commonwealth that can be found in Haxtun, Colorado is education. We show a great amount of support towards our school district and towards the youth of Haxtun in general. Many people in our community have helped me in this internship, as well as in other youth outreach programs.
