As my internship is with two different businesses, I have had numerous opportunities to explore different aspects of my community. This included interacting with different businesses, as well as numerous community members. I have used these interactions to better help me understand how my community fits into the 12 key assets of commonwealth.
Commonwealth mapping can be challenging because in order to identify the 12 key assets, it requires you to dig deeper within your community. Identifying these 12 key assets has lead to many meaningful conversations with community members, as well as my supervisors. I chose to examine two of our 12 key assets- education, health, and leisure and recreation.
First and foremost, I looked to education as one of our assets. Haxtun has one of the best quality of school ratings within Northeast Colorado, therefore our community works hard to assure that our school possesses the resources it needs. When I was still in Junior High, our county passes a grant to add-on a new Junior High building to our campus.
Secondly, I looked to health. As part of my internship is at our local Hospital, it was not hard to understand why health is one of the 12 key assets. The hospital has many resources for physical, mental, and spiritual wellness, such as an in hospital chapel, and a well-known physical therapy program.
Finally, I looked into leisure and recreation. As Haxtun is such a small town, there isn’t a whole lot of leisure and recreation buildings. We currently have an indoor swimming pool, a park, and some basketball courts. However, funds are currently being raised to build an outside swimming pool, or a rec center!
