Our Signing Town

Our family is busy packing our home for Fishers, Indiana . We have sold our home in Salem, and we will hit the road on Saturday, March 31st .

Leaving South Dakota will be a bittersweet experience for us . Salem, our hometown of 2 years, has been good to our family, and we will miss the friendly faces at Salem Lumber, Zapp Hardware, Salem Drug Store, End Zone Bar, Salem Farmer’s Market, Iron Wheel and a few other places in town. Living in a town of 1,370 people has its charms and advantages, yet being one of two deaf families living in the town has its challenges.

We will be focused on moving, unpacking, and enrolling our children at Indiana School for the Deaf for the next several weeks. I am anxious to get back on the saddle and work hard on developing a new strategy and direction for The Laurent Institute and the vision of building Laurent.

We have received numerous ideas on where we should build the town, ranging from within metropolitian Minneapolis to the hills of Pennsylvania. Soon, I will be talking about the criteria in selecting the best possible location for the town, including the need for a state with “relatively” low population.

With a population of only 2 million (and growing), someone strongly urged us to consider Utah. With nearby access to tall mountains, lakes and large metropolitian area, this could be an ideal place. We’re remaining open to ALL ideas, so keep them coming!

Tip: You can download our concept paper and go to the last page for a chart of all states and their populations and land size.

The not-for-profit The Laurent Institute is announcing that key members of the organization will be leaving the Sioux Falls, SD area and relocating to the Indianapolis, Indiana area within the next few months.

The Laurent Institute exists as the fund raising vehicle and developer of the world’s first fully integrated town for deaf, hard of hearing and hearing people who use sign language on a daily basis.

The decision represents a significant change in the direction and plans for the new town.

“This has been a very difficult decision for us. The two most important factors that contributed to the change of direction are, the failure of our angel supporter to close our funding package, and the immediate educational needs of my four deaf children,” said Marvin Miller, cofounder of the Institute.

Other factors include the declining enrollment at South Dakota School for the Deaf,and the rapidly declining deaf and signing population in Sioux Falls due to changes at Communication Service for the Deaf.

Miller and cofounder M.E. Barwacz,of both The Laurent Institute and the for-profit The Laurent Company, gratefully acknowledge the tremendous support they have received from the signing community and many of its organizations, from all who have donated their time and work, ideas and suggestions, from the 160 families that are currently on its housing waiting list, from many of McCook County’s leaders and families and from numerous individuals and communities. Their support has been invaluable.

Miller, says, “The Indiana School for the Deaf is widely regarded as one of the top deaf schools in the nation, and they have an enrollment of over 340 children.”

The Laurent Institute will not have an office in Indiana, nor does it mean the town would be built in Indiana. The Institute will continue to have an online presence. “We will operate from there, and we will be able to take advantage of Indianapolis’ competitive air fares to continue to reach many places within the U.S. for presentations, meetings, and conferences,” said Barwacz.

In the following months, TLI will not only relocate, but it will name several key people to the board of the Institute. Using input from the Deaf and signing community will be valuable in determining the new location for the town of Laurent. “We will need to rework our plans and strategy for building the town within the next 5 years,” Barwacz emphasized.

The Laurent Institute, Miller and Barwacz and others, all remain committed to building a town where signers are free to live, work, play and pray, in a beautiful, vibrant, walkable community. Miller states, “Our dream is still alive as we balance our families’ needs with today’s realities.”

Miller continues, “Leaving South Dakota is not something we want to do. We love this state, the people and sunny skies. We have worked hard to see our town built here. Many people have worked to help us achieve that goal, but the circumstances have changed. We need to be in a position to regroup and begin our efforts anew.”

The Laurent Institute is currently generously sponsored by Hawk Relay at www.hawkrelay.com.

We’re definitely enjoying the holidays away from the office and our work on development of the signing town. We wish you all the best from us!

Marvin and M.E.

We live in exciting times. While we have had to put the planned town of Laurent on the shelf for the time being, because of the inability of our angel backers to complete the promised funding package, we are moving forward with our plan to invite the Deaf and Signers to join us in McCook County, South Dakota. We are especially concentrating our efforts on the small town of Spencer, which has been struggling to attract new residents and business since it was devastated 8 years ago by a tornado. The good news is that the town, thanks to state and federal aid, and the help and work of many other groups and individuals, has a solid new infrastructure, which includes the sewer, water and roads.

The 1/4 square mile town, says they have 160 residents and a handful of businesses. The bank and post office, the churches and insurance agent, have rebuilt their buildings. Some new houses replace the old ones. Some older homes have been repaired. The vacant lots are mowed and sit waiting for new people to make Spencer their home town.

One business, Spencer Automotive Service, has remained the heart and soul of the town. It has one gas pump, three bays for auto and truck repairs, five tables with chairs and a stock of grocery and household items, as well as bins of nuts, bolts and screws used by the town’s people and the surrounding farmers.

The couple who owns the station are retiring due to health reasons. Chuck and his wife “Sam”, rebuilt their station after the tornado. They moved to the town after visiting friends in the area and fell in love with the lifestyle, the big blue sky, the friendly people. The good clean air, as well as the opportunity to own their own business, kept them in Spencer. They are hoping someone else will take over and keep this vital business open and grow it to become even better.

As I write this today, there is an offer to purchase this business for $90,000. After a careful inspection of the building and the business, and meeting with Chuck and Sam, and the banker, the deal will not be closing. Chuck provided the most important part of the business in the past. He is a great mechanic. Now he is unable to work, and without the income his towing service and repairs brought in, the station only breaks even as it operates on gas sales and groceries.

This means, an opportunity is opening up for a mechanic who is skilled in the repair of many models of autos and trucks and even some farm equipment, to buy the service station/convience store. The building is a steel structure, well insulated, with automatic garage door openers, two 200 AMP fuse boxes, high efficient furnace and includes an area which totals 4350 square feet. The gas pump is computerized. There is an eat-in area as well as coolers and display shelves in the store. Current residents meet daily for breakfast and coffee, seniors and others come for lunch. The afternoon card games and birthday celebrations start about 3 p.m. each afternoon.

More information about this business can be obtained by contacting the listing sales person, Bob Jarding’s cell phone, (605) 770-3613.

CAUTION: We have not made a final decision on whether we will build in Spencer. Please carefully evaluate the purchase of the gas station. We will make our announcement on whether we will select Spencer as the place to build our signing community. We hope to do this within the next 3 months. Once we do, The Laurent Institute will be moving to Spencer, S.D. and we will be working toward bringing other businesses and residents to this town.

On days like this, I pause and think. What am I doing? Why am I pushing towards making the signing town a reality?

The sacrifices my family and close friends have had to make thus far are huge. My deaf children sometimes beg me to relocate to Indiana School for the Deaf so they can have more peers and more activities. I totally understand, and I struggle with this on a daily basis. As a father, you want to provide your children with best opportunities possible.

I am not writing this to whine. I am just considering the price we have to pay thus far, and I am not sure how much more we will have to give before we finally see this town become a reality.

Why are we so committed to this?

The answer: This small town will change everything.

The playing field will be leveled in:

• Politics
• Education
• Religion
• Recreation
• Social dynamics
• Health and mental health

In America, democracy and votes are almost everything. With them, you have power to change or shape your community to reflect the local values and needs.

With education, we will have the ability to decide what happens to our children — deaf, hearing and hard of hearing — ourselves. Not somebody else. Us. We get to decide what standards our children will aspire to. We get to decide how they are taught about English, ASL, oralism, deaf culture, our history, and more.

With religion, we can work to ensure that places of worship is totally accessible so not one will be left out.

Socially, our community will evolve even more towards interdependence reality as well as better understanding of who we are, why we do what we do and where we are going as a community.

In health and mental health care, we will see breakthroughs in treatment because members of our community will finally understand why they are suffering and how to help themselves to a better life.

This is why we can not and will not give up.

These guys at Mosdeux.com has done it again.

Chad W Taylor and Wayne Betts, Jr. created a breathtakingly beautiful short film, Resonare. This film showcases their talents and creativity. I can’t imagine the hours and sweat they have invested in this film. Especially when you consider some scenes like Chad standing on mountain cliff. That wasn’t easy shot.

I promised I wouldn’t give away the ending, but pfft… it doesn’t matter. Almost. The quality, motion, characters and the fact that Resonare pulls you in emotionally… wow.

A must watch. Your interpretation may vary.

We received generous donations of a pristine Sony digital video camcorder from Ella M. Lentz and Judy Gough of Hayward, California when they visited us last week. We mentioned to them that our video camcorder broke down, and we’d need to raise a couple hundred dollars to buy a new one. They graciously gave us their video camcorder on the spot! They support our vision of building the signing community so strongly. Thank you.

Also, in a few weeks, we will be receiving two brand new Apple MacBook laptops for our office, thanks to generous donation of Michael and Sonja Miller of Oscoda, Michigan. This will allow all of us to work on Macs once again, and this will be a major productivity boost for us.

Donations like this keep us going, and we know you want this town built. Not soon, but like yesterday! We will be announcing some good things very soon.

Our reservation list now numbers at 161. The most recent addition is a hearing signer from La Meignanne, France. This is a testament to the vision of creating a barrier-free, signing friendly town that will empower our community to do more.

And, remember… you can help us by using Hawk Relay every day! The more people use their service, the more money The Laurent Institute will receive.

Apparently, there were some problems viewing the video of Swedish Deaf TV program on Laurent, S.D. We have re-encoded the video, and its now available in the Flash video format.

Here’s the link: http://blip.tv/file/100093

For better quality video, go to Perspektiv’s web site at: http://www.svt.se/perspektiv

Perspektiv, a Swedish deaf TV program, broadcast their segment on Laurent yesterday.

Last June, reporters Juli af Klintberg and Anders par Johannson flew to New York City then traveled to South Dakota to film many stories ranging from interviewing deaf survivors of 9/11 to deaf fashion designer to our vision of building world’s integrated and accessible town in South Dakota.

It is fun to watch deaf TV programs in other languages… a fascinating study in similarities and differences.

Enjoy!

http://www.blip.tv/file/98983/ 

We are currently exploring our alternatives to building a brand new town from scratch, and at this time, we are focusing on Spencer, South Dakota. We just sent out a letter from The Laurent Institute to all lot owners in Spencer last week, and we have received favorable response thus far. It’s still too early to say at this point.

Spencer excites us in many ways. The town is ideally located only 20 minutes from Mitchell, S.D. This means you would only be 20 minutes away from Wal-Mart, Cabela’s, Menard’s, fast food, restaurants, hotels and so on. There’s even 24-hour local grocery store called Coborn’s and they carry a selection of FRESH organic meats in stock as well as a section dedicated to natural and organic grocery items.

Spencer has fairly new infrastructure (roads, sewer, water, and so on) as well as cable TV, telephone and high speed DSL internet service provided by McCook Telephone Cooperative.

However, we are not ready to announce the final selection. It depends on our ability to acquire enough lots in order for this to make sense for The Laurent Institute as well as the community as whole.

Our other alternate sites are still being researched, and they include Montana, Wyoming and Kansas as well as other sites within South Dakota. Western Montana has beautiful mountains, natural places and parks. Kansas has warmer climate and Kansas City airport is Midwest’s cheapest airport to fly in and out of. Omaha comes in second. Third is St. Louis, Mo. This excludes Chicago.

What we’d love to hear from you is which state would you “perceive” to be the best alternative out of all listed below?

• South Dakota
• North Dakota
• Wyoming
• Montana
• Utah
• Kansas
• Nebraska

And why? Maybe we should do a poll on this. At this time, we are pretty committed to staying in South Dakota, but we are always open to all other possibilities, no matter how small the chances are. By being open to options, we broaden our viewpoints.