In a small town, everyone knows everyone and most want to do their part to help others thrive.
So says Tim Penny, president and CEO of Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation, in a news release. SMIF recently awarded 25 grants totaling $200,000, which impacted 20 small communities across the region.
Two of those Small Town Grants, as they’re called, were awarded in Madelia and Waseca.
“We’re really thankful to have gotten this grant,” said Melanie Knaak-Guyer, treasurer with the Madelia Arts Collaborative. “It’s only through efforts like this that some initiatives are able to move forward from ‘Hey, that’s a good idea’ to reality. We want to keep our town vibrant and we think that the arts are a very critical part of that.”
Her organization received $10,000 earlier this month from SMIF, as did Farmamerica in rural Waseca.
The Madelia Arts Collaborative is expanding from the Madelia Community Theatre to better serve their community’s diverse needs. Grant recipients hope the new multi-disciplinary arts hub will enrich the cultural fabric of their community and engage residents of all ages, Penny stated in the op/ed.
“We are retooling our efforts,” Knaak-Guyer said. “Originally we were a community theater and we wanted to reinvent it a little bit and expand it beyond just a theater.”
They’ll use their $10,000 grant to promote the arts collaborative, she said, and also to purchase mobile staging so they can host events at different locations in Madelia. They have a stage at the high school “but there are other places we’d like to hold events.”
By stretching their funding, they’ll also use grant funds to cover an elder celebration, whereby a local playwright will write a play about a selected elder’s life and then youth will perform it.
That play will be performed this summer at Madelia Park Days. The featured elder being celebrated is Buster Yates, a colorful, longtime character from Madelia, Knaak-Guyer said.
With its $10,000 award, the Minnesota Agricultural Interpretive Center will expand Farmamerica’s farm-to-fork experiences to diverse age groups and ethnicities within Waseca. Those involved say the project will foster a sense of belonging and cultural exchange by partnering with local farmers, chefs and organizations such as the Hmong American Farmers Association.
What’s more, a hydroponic lab will provide educational opportunities, promoting a different style of agriculture while also producing fresh vegetables for Farmerica’s farm-to-fork events and the community food shelf, Penny stated.
Their goal for their farm-to-fork experiences is to source 75 percent of the food served during farm-to-fork events from 75 miles or closer, said Jessica Rollins, the Interpretive Center’s executive director. She said they aim to welcome 10% of each audience from a diverse demographic.
“We hope to bring together a different age group than we’ve served in the past and different ethnicities that will bring the community together and bring those people to the table,” she said of Farmamerica.
The Small Town Grant program was launched in 2017 to support smaller communities, which can benefit from additional financial resources to help them grow and address challenges, said Sarah Scheffert, communications and community vitality specialist with SMIF.
The recent approval of 25 grants has pushed the Small Town Grants awarded to 138 projects since the program began, she said. In the years to date, SMIF has awarded more than $1.1 million to organizations in the small towns of the region.