Some local community members and non-profit groups have been working for months to turn the old abandoned elementary school in downtown Ignacio into a community center modeled after Durango's Smiley Building.
Now it's happening. The ELHI, which now stands for education, literacy, health, and inspiration, will have its big community grand opening from 5 to 9 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 30. Recognizing the season, there will be a haunted house hosted by SUCAP Youth Services; and the Pine River Shares monthly potluck, usually held in Bayfield, will be that evening at the ELHI multi-purpose room/ gym after the grand opening ribbon cutting.
There will be tours to meet with the building's non-profit group tenants - Dancing Spirit Community Arts Center, Silver Spruce Academy, SUCAP Youth Services, La Plata Youth Performing Arts, Hope Community Christian Academy, and Ignacio Community Church.
ELHI board of directors chairman Raymond Dunton gave a building tour earlier this month for the Times.
Dancing Spirit occupies several rooms in the west building for its gallery and arts activity and class spaces. SUCAP Youth Services also has several rooms. They were left homeless when their building was demolished late last year to be replaced by the new larger Farmers Fresh Market.
La Plata Youth Performing Arts also is in the west building. The group offers classes in ballet, yoga, karate, colorguard, and more to children and adults.
The east building has returned to being classroom space again, with small children livening the space and decorating the walls with their art work. Hope Community Christian Academy (HCCA) has seven classrooms. Silver Spruce Academy has four rooms. Both of them work with home school students and share resources. HCCA provides supplementary classes using the same curriculum as the parents, Dunton said.
"The kids love these hallways," he said as a small boy ran back and forth, and the academy teachers love having windows, he said.
HCCA teacher Kate Willyard has 11 kindergarten and first grade students. "I love the space," she said. "The first time I saw how big (the room) is, I just wanted to do cartwheels. The kids love it."
The final tenant, Ignacio Community Church, is renovating the former IES library for their church. "They have a 100-year history in Ignacio," Dunton said. They've been trying to build a new church for some time. They also will use the multi-purpose room for activities. "Probably this would be an answer to prayer to meet their needs. We're just waiting for them to complete their renovation to start holding services," Dunton said. "They plan to be done by the end of the month. It's all volunteer work."
Between the east and west building is the "secret garden," with trees, shrubs, and a semi-circle stone seating area. It needs a lot of TLC, Dunton said. A volunteer group will work on that.
Since February 2014, the building served as Ignacio High School and was dubbed the ELHI. Students are now in their rebuilt high school, but the community center will keep the ELHI acronym. It now stands for Education, Literacy, Health, and Inspiration.
Dunton said, "We wanted to keep the name ELHI. We felt it's part of the history. In one of our earlier meetings, we came up with using that as an acronym. We wanted the name 'community center' because it spoke of our values and purpose, so the community would embrace this as their own."
He said, "When it came time for the school district to decide what to do with this property, they discovered they couldn't sell it, and it had to be used for educational purposes. They started to get the word out to non-profits that fit the category of education. Groups started meeting and looking for tenants that would be willing to rent."
Kasey Correia with Dancing Spirit was one of those who pulled all this together. She said, "I was in Dancing Spirit one afternoon in June 2014, and I had this whole inspiration for re-purposing this building." That led to discussions with grant writer Maria Roddis of what a community center should be. "It was dangerous for Maria and me to get together, because things started manifesting," Correia said.
The last turning point, she said, was the Ignacio Chamber meeting last December when she was advised to talk to Natalie Howard from Silver Spruce. "That's when the power trio got going," Correia said.
Dunton said, "The (school) superintendant and board said 'We don't want to become landlords.' They expressed to prospective tenants that a tenant association had to be created. The tenants had a meeting to elect board members, who elected officers. We began to file as a non-profit with the state of Colorado. We're officially recognized with the state."
Once selected by the ELHI board, tenants had to be approved by the school district, Dunton said. The tenants were so eager and enthusiastic to move in that they signed an open contract. "The board negotiated a price per square foot with the district. They've bent over backwards to accommodate us," he said.
Because they work in sync with the Ignacio school calendar, Silver Spruce and HCCA needed to get into the ELHI as soon as possible, he said. HCCA moved from a church space in Bayfield, then the other tenants began moving in.
Retired longtime Bayfield teacher Peggy Iberg is helping Youth Services kids prepare a dramatization of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. She is helping with props, costumes, and "smoothing out the rough edges wherever I can." Their performance target is late November. "We do two days a week of theater, Lego League, civic engagement, service at Manna Soup Kitchen, the Pagosa Springs Humane Society once a month, and other service projects," she said.
Dunton said, "One of the exciting things for me is the way all the tenants are working together, the collaboration, cross-pollination, sharing resources. Their primary focus is serving the community. One of the biggest challenges, all are good neighbors in the community, but now that they're all under one roof, they are learning to be good roommates," Dunton said. "One of our main strengths is we are community-based and have a common vision and mission in serving the community."
Along with Dunton, tenant association board members are Kasey Correia from Dancing Spirit, Natalie Howard from Silver Spruce, Amos Lee from Farmers Fresh Market, and community member and new mom Angela Simons. Their project manager and grant writer is Maria Roddis.
