In 2007-2008, we had the pleasure of working with the
Business, Arts and Recreation Center in Windom. Three big issues launched the organization:
- A crisis. The large old Windom 1931 school building was being shut down, and was scheduled for demolition in 2000. Community members, and those who had grown up and attended school in the building, were not ready to lose it.
- An opportunity. With the needs and crisis, people came together, were willing to donate their time, and come up with a vision and a solution. They did some legwork, and ran a major fund-raising campaign which raised more than $100,000 to purchase and renovate the facility in 2001. The group was able to purchase the facility for $1, and begin refinishing and repurposing the school building. BARC also became a non-profit organization in 2002.
- A need. One of the goals of the new board of directors was to have an educational component as part their programming. The local community had education and arts needs that weren’t being met by existing systems; local employers needed resources for staff training; community members needed a place to learn new technologies and ideas; and people needed a place to channel their creativity, get messy, and make things. In 2007, they successfully received a grant from the Bush Foundation to offer a variety of arts-focused classes.
We helped the Business, Arts and Recreation Center to do a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis for this new education component. We learned that over its first several months, community members came to think of the Center as a place to learn, grow and build community; that the class offerings were meeting local needs; and that there was on-going opportunity for collaboration. Since that time, the Windom Education & Collaborative Center (WECC) was developed that began offering technology, skills development and business training classes in the BARC facility in 2008. A twelve station computer lab was installed as part of the WECC program.
What’s happened since? Now over
40 classes are offered each quarter at the Center, and the Center has become a hub of activity. More of the spaces are in use, including a major recent lease back to the school district that has opened an early childhood learning center in the building. All of the activity lends economic stability and opportunity for re-investment in the building. This process could be replicated in other communities, as crises are turned into opportunities and old assets are renewed. The BARC Coordinator, Cathy Peterson, who also serves as the WECC Coordinator, has been reflecting on her work and the successes of the Center in convening people, bringing more dollars to the region, and building a local treasure. If you’d like to hear her lessons learned, contact her on
LinkedIn.
