Gardiner's Grit
As the original gateway community to the nation’s first national park, Gardiner is unique. However, our unique heritage is only one of the many reasons we love living here. We are deeply connected to the landscape and value being a friendly, safe, supportive and welcoming community.
Because Gardiner is one of a kind, we have a strong culture of volunteerism and a long history of coming together when faced with a challenge to uphold and protect the integrity of our community. Most recently, we created a foundation to maintain the quality of our school system and we created the Resort District to create a pool of money for community investments. Since its inception in 2016, the Resort Tax Board has distributed over $1,000,000 to local projects and nonprofits. The Gateway Project, completed in 2017, addressed traffic congestion and parking, and fixed significant stormwater run-off flooding issues. This commitment to solving big challenges goes back to the 1950’s when we created the Water and Sanitation District to address extreme water quality and sewage issues.
Gardiner's Challenge
While we are doing some great work, we are still facing significant community health, governance, housing, and education challenges. Like so many places across the West, we are growing and changing. The number of visitors to Yellowstone National Park continue to increase exceeding four million visitors again in 2018. While a growth in tourism can be good for the local economy, it has put pressure on both affordability and accessibility of housing. Rising housing prices and the rapid increase in the number of houses being used as vacation rentals is perceived as one of our most serious challenges. Responding to the lack of housing, families are being forced to move away and employers are struggling to keep good employees. While we may not know the solutions yet, we know the trajectory we are on is eroding our sense of community and is threatening everything we love about living here.
Gardiner's Opportunity
Gleaning strength from our previous successes, we have an opportunity right now to act by directing the changes that are happening in Gardiner before it is too late. Let’s work together to make sure our community remains the authentic, vibrant, and healthy community that we all love. Successful Gardiner wants to engage all of the community in a dialogue and problem-solving process to clarify what we want for the future, identify our barriers and opportunities for achieving our vision, agreeing on the road map to get there, and most importantly, taking action.
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For this effort to be successful, we cannot do this without you. Please join us in this community-wide conversation. We will begin by reaching out to you via interviews, surveys, online forums, and a Successful Gardiner Action Summit to listen to you, your concerns, hopes, and ideas for making sure Gardiner thrives well into the future.
Successful Gardiner Leadership
Successful Gardiner is led by a coalition of community organizations and leaders volunteering their time to make this project happen. This leadership group oversees Future West, a non-profit providing technical and facilitation assistance.
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Bear Creek Council
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Chamber of Commerce
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Gardiner School District
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Gardiner Food Pantry
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Greater Gardiner Community Council
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Northern Yellowstone Education Foundation
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MSU Extension
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Park County
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Resort Tax Board