By DAVE GUNTER

Feature correspondent

SANDPOINT – Hark back to this time of year in 2008, and the global picture looked pretty bleak. Come to think of it, the local snapshot was starting to look a little shaky, as well.

The world was rolling into recession and small towns like Sandpoint were being dragged to that unfortunate party, like it or not.

Here at home, though, something miraculous was happening. A small group of energized people lit a spark that carried our town forward and, some would say, created the future we are living today.

That was the year the Sandpoint Transition Initiative was launched – or “unleashed” to use the organization’s own terminology – and Sandpoint has never been the same.

“The active word is initiative,” said Karen Lanphear, who co-founded STI with Richard Kuhnel after he attended training in England and hosted a group of interested friends to share what he had learned. “That’s what sparked all the things that happened in our community.”

STI landed with such a splash that it would be easy to think it was an event, as opposed to a movement. When Sandpoint was designated the second Transition Town in the U.S. in June of 2008, national media pounced, with feature stories in the New York Times, on National Public Radio and as part of a documentary done by a Dutch film company. Instead of yet another story touting the “best small town” or tourism angles, this coverage focused on how just plain folks were about to take the future into their own hands.

By that fall, the group was moving ahead at a rapid pace. A beehive of activity behind the scenes was finally introduced to the public in what was called the Great Unleashing at the Panida Theater. More than 500 people packed the auditorium, with dozens more turned away for lack of space.

What they heard there was a foundational message about how to relocalize the town as a way to “create a sustainable, viable community,” Lanphear noted.

“It was a social permaculture project,” she said.

Literally the day after the unleashing, STI was on the move as close to 120 people showed up to volunteer their talents and ideas to the cause. In essence, they were asked two questions: What’s your passion? Ready to put it to work?

A total of 11 working groups came together to tackle subjects as diverse as food production, the local economy, education, art, energy and sustainable construction and design.

“When we first started, everything was electric,” said the co-founder.

One of the first projects out of the blocks came from the food group, which partnered with the City of Sandpoint to locate and develop a community garden space. What they ended up with was a rectangular plot of land near Dub’s Drive-in and adjacent to an existing baseball field.

Just as with other changes the town has seen, this early effort was a big first step toward what Sandpoint would look like a decade later. The Community Garden started out with about 20 raised beds. Going into this growing season, it boasts 70 of them. But that garden is not the biggest part of the story, according to Michele Murphree, a gardening expert who works with local students to design and build vegetable gardens at their schools.

“STI was the impetus for every elementary school in our district getting a school garden,” she said, adding that similar projects have cropped up at the Forrest M. Bird Charter Schools, Sandpoint Early Head Start and the Bonner Community Food Bank. “And we’ll be putting in another large community garden at the library this summer.

“The more fresh produce we can grow, the better,” she went on. “Now there’s an awareness of the need in our community for food and students have had a hand in that as older kids help the younger ones in the garden.”

One of the working groups formed in that first year was aptly named the “wasteless committee,” which Lanphear said was a catalyst for at least two watershed programs in the city.

“In the first year, they turned The Festival at Sandpoint green, so that everything that could be composted was composted,” she pointed out, highlighting a successful effort that continues today.

“And when the city took initiative in our partnership, those conversations segued into meetings with the county and Waste Management to start the recycling program,” Lanphear said.

Personal and career growth, too, were impacted by STI. As the group was finding its legs, meetings were held at Common Knowledge Bookstore and hosted by owner Shelby Rognstad, who went on to become the mayor. One of the first videos chronicling the first stages of STI’s evolution was filmed by Aaron Qualls, who, according to Lanphear, was inspired to go back to school and get the degree that led to his current position as Sandpoint’s planning & economic development director.

“The mayor, the city planner – STI generated all that,” said Lanphear. “There are just lots of connections.”

Another offshoot of STI was a push to build a community college in town. While that vision didn’t pan out as first imagined, it did have a ripple effect that resulted in an enhanced higher education presence in Sandpoint.

A decade ago, North Idaho College, the University of Idaho and Lewis-Clark State College all were “separate entities with no real outreach in this community,” said Lanphear. NIC now lists a Sandpoint Campus on its roster, with numerous courses offered at the Sandpoint Events Center.

Two more examples of how education took root come with the Idaho PTECH program in Sandpoint, which partners with employers in the state to help students develop real world job skills and have the opportunity to train on site, along with the North Idaho High School Aerospace Program, which provides opportunities for local students to transition into secondary aerospace education and job placement.

“All of this was a result of people first getting together to talk about the future,” Lanphear said.

The STI co-founder feels as strongly as ever about the ideas that became innovations in Sandpoint, but feels no compulsion to revitalize the group on its 10-year anniversary. Still, she welcomes the thought of the community carrying the standard forward.

“The initial energy was here and it all coalesced from there,” she said. “I hold the story, but I don’t hold the future of the thing.

“I can’t take credit for what took place, but I was lucky enough to be part of the dreaming and the conversations that made it happen.”

For more information on Sandpoint Transition Initiative and to view a descriptive video created by Suzen Fiskin, founding member and facilitator of the STI Heart & Soul of Change group, visit online at: www.sandpointtransitioninitiative.org