When Paulette Church was hired as the executive director of the Durango Adult Education Center in 1999, many people thought she was there to shut it down. They were in for a surprise.
“I said, ‘No, I’m here to build it up,’” Church said, admitting that she had never done anything like it before. “I said I could do it, but I didn’t know if I could do it. I prayed that I could.”
Build the Adult Education Center she did, from about 240 students annually to almost 900, from limited child care to about 100 babies, toddlers and children served daily so students could learn, from leaking ceilings and erratic heat at the Mason Center to its own building, The Commons.
Now, after 14 years at the helm, she is stepping down.
The early days were not easy.
“I was leading, doing child care, teaching computer and GED classes, answering the phone and doing the bookkeeping until I could raise enough money to hire more staff,” Church said. “We were on probation with the Colorado Department of Education because we were behind on reporting, and I had to write an annual report for a year I wasn’t even there. If I didn’t get a score of 80 or higher, we couldn’t apply for funding for three years.”
Fortunately, Church scored an 86, so the center was able to apply for funding from one of its major grantors.
Funding has always been one of the biggest challenges. Church raised $135,000 the first year, an amount that steadily increased. Since 2007, she has raised more than $1 million annually for center operations, but it has been more and more difficult every year to keep the doors open and programs funded.
“There’s virtually no funding year to year, so you have to raise it every year,” she said.
Along the way, Church has garnered accolades, including the 2010 William Funk Award for Community Building from the Colorado Nonprofit Association and the 2012 Extraordinary Woman Award from the Women’s Resource Center.
Church strengthened the identity of her organization.
“She brought a renewed dedication, an awareness of the importance of adult education and what we call literacy,” said Stephanie Moran, GED program coordinator at the adult education center. “And her style of leadership is so open. Everybody at the table has a voice.”
The bottom line for Church isn’t the money, staff or awards, it’s the people.
“In a state with one of the highest dropout rates in the country, nearly 30 percent, we are one of only two states that does not fund adult education,” she said. “The economy can’t afford to have 30 percent of the workforce unemployed, underemployed, in poverty or in jail. Adult education is vital to the economic health of our community.”
From the young man struggling with writing because of a learning disability who’s now making straight A’s at Colorado School of Mines to the mother who came back to earn her GED diploma after her children started school and now is in college, Church knows her students’ stories and what this second chance at an education has meant.
A home of its own
The cornerstone of Church’s legacy is The Commons, owned by the Durango Adult Education Center and the Southwest Conversation Corps.
“She had the original vision for that building,” said Harry Bruell, CEO of the conservation corps. “Her optimism and can-do attitude kept the project going when others might have turned back.”
Church remembers long days of financial negotiations to come up with the $4 million to buy the building and serving as the general contractor for the $2.7 million remodel.
The Commons setup doesn’t just give the Adult Education Center a home, it allows it to better serve its students.
“If a student’s having problems with domestic violence, we take them down the hall to Alternative Horizons, sexual assault over to the Sexual Assault Services Organization,” Church said. “Grandmother’s slipping into dementia, let’s go talk to the Alzheimer’s Association. And many continue their education downstairs at Southwest Colorado Community College.”
Church hopes the building continues to be nonprofit central.
“Her legacy can’t be overestimated,” Moran said. “We were bursting at the seams at the Mason Center. And those nonprofits can serve more people now because of affordable rent.”
The next chapter
“It’s so nice not to have to drive into town from Falls Creek every day,” Church said. “I get to start every day in the hot tub having a smoothie with my husband.”
Church is still offering her expertise to the nonprofit community. She sits on the board of Music in the Mountains, is vice president of the Durango Chamber of Commerce board and is planning four conferences as the trainer for Rotary District 5470. In May, she’ll officially become director of the nonprofit certification program through the Continuing Education Department at Fort Lewis College after serving on the program’s advisory board since its beginning.
She’ll also be free to explore Colorado with her husband when Clyde Church becomes the Rotary district governor for 2014-15.
“Clyde has been right beside her through all this,” Moran said. “He truly has made a big difference here, too. We’ll miss them both.”
abutler@durangoherald.com
