Kansas Profile - Now That's Rural - Marci Penner - We Kan! Bank - Whiting, Kansas

By Ron Wilson, director of the Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development at Kansas State University.

Let’s stop by the bank today. Unlike your local financial institution, there’s no teller windows or ATM at this bank, but there is a tremendous resource. This is what Marci Penner calls the We Kan! Bank, a new initiative of the Kansas Sampler Foundation. The We Kan! Bank is not a financial institution, but rather a virtual, social capital bank where people can match needs with resources. The bank’s first project was recently implemented in Whiting, Kansas. It’s today’s Kansas Profile.

Marci Penner is the Director of the Kansas Sampler Foundation. One of Marci’s transformational ideas for rural Kansas is the We Kan! Bank, designed to match rural community needs with those who can help. Marci says, “This is a social capital bank, where volunteer-led communities can open accounts of need and other people can open accounts of support.”  The “banker” helps match them together.

Another transformational idea is I Kan Help, which is a means of empowering individuals to donate time and/or money to rural communities that need them. Marci says, “Let’s say there was a family that wanted to make a difference. If there was a website which they could click on to find needed volunteer projects in their area, they could see where they could help.”

Marci was thinking about this when she received a call from Rosa Thomas, owner of the Whiting Café in Whiting, Kansas. Rosa invited Marci to her café’s 25^th anniversary celebration in August.  Marci says, “I had something else going on that day, but it hit me that her cafe would be the perfect opportunity to try this idea. We could give Rosa an early anniversary present.”

Marci says, “I know Rosa is a person who gives to the community.” So Marci convinced Rosa to let volunteers give her café a makeover.

Marci says, “Rosa didn’t ask for this help, we convinced her we wanted to do it. Anyone who can keep a café open for 25 years in a town this size deserves recognition and support.”

Whiting is a truly rural community, with a population of 206 people. Now, that’s rural. The Kansas Sampler Foundation called for volunteers and organized this effort.

On the last weekend of June 2009, more than 100 people donated time and effort to make repairs, clean, replace equipment, paint, and generally fix up the Whiting Café. Rosa prepared meals at the community center to serve to the workers and paid the cost of the major repairs.  Donors contributed more than $5,000 to underwrite other costs. Volunteers received t-shirts saying I Kan Help!

Local folks helped serve meals. One artist designed and painted a mural saying, “Food so great you’ll scrape your plate.” The preacher came over after church on Sunday to fix the pilot light in the grill. A country music band played for the group on Saturday night.

Marci says, “People worked late each night. Finally we had to get out of there on Sunday so Rosa and crew could prepare the café for 6 a.m. opening on Monday.”

In the end, the rural community of Whiting had a beautiful new look to their locally owned café, and volunteers had donated more than 1,300 hours to the cause. Marci says, “This was a pilot project. We can only do one of these major statewide projects a year, but maybe we could organize lots of smaller local projects which people could get involved in.”

For more information, go to www.kansassampler.org. Remember, it was no government agency or federal grant that made this possible, but rather the spirit of volunteerism which is rural America at its best.

It’s time to leave this bank. But this bank has no vault or bars on the windows, for this is a virtual bank of social capital where people can identify needs and then match them with dollars or volunteer hours. As an example, the bank’s initial project was completed here in Whiting, Kansas. We commend Marci Penner, Rosa Thomas, and all the volunteers who made a difference by giving of themselves to benefit this community. As a rewarding experience, this was an investment which produced a high return.

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The mission of the Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development is to enhance rural development by helping rural people help themselves. The Kansas Profile radio series and columns are produced with assistance from the K-State Research and Extension Department of Communications News Unit. A photo of Ron Wilson is available at  http://www.ksre.ksu.edu/news/sty/RonWilson.htm.  Audio and text files of Kansas Profiles are available at http://www.kansasprofile.com. For more information about the Huck Boyd Institute, interested persons can visit http://www.ksre.ksu.edu/huckboyd/.

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