Editor’s note: The Marshall Area YMCA is celebrating its 25th anniversary. Members of the community are sharing some of their memories of bringing the YMCA to Marshall.

In the late 1990’s the completion of the Marshall Flood Control Project opened up much of the city for commercial and industrial expansion as well as housing areas. The issue quickly moved to not enough people to fill available jobs in the community. The challenge for the community and employers in the community was how to attract and retain families in the community to provide local employers the needed workforce.

To tackle this challenge, I appointed a “Mayor’s Blue-Ribbon Task Force”. The charge to that task force was to make recommendations to the city on strategies to attract and retain families to Marshall. The task force was given a three month timeline to come up with recommendations. I appointed members who were respected, reliable and dedicated to the success of Marshall. People like Paul Rehkamp, Stan Finnested, Tom Tapper, Jim Babcock, Howard Miller, Lyle Weismantel, Harry Weilage and others to form a task force of sixteen.

The Recommendations were numerous, ranging from strategies to welcome new populations and marketing strategies. But the number one recommendation was constructing and a community activity center. The vision was a Community Center large enough to include exercise and wellness along with community gathering areas. The vision was big with a big cost of $10 million not including the site acquisition and preparation.

When the preliminary recommendations were made by the task force, we introduced the results to key employers in the community to test whether the recommendations aligned with their business strategies.

One of the individuals Harry Weilage and I met with was the new president / CEO of the Schwan Food Company, Lennie Pippen. Lennie quickly recognized the importance of a community center where families could feel welcome and be healthy.

Lennie had many ideas on what the community activity center could be, where it could be located and what a center might cost. Lennie pledged a matching contribution from Schwan of $5 million to matched dollar for dollar by other contributions.

This proposal was presented to the community in a public meeting held at the Ramada. The proposal was enthusiastically endorsed and the hard work of fundraising and planning the facility was launched. The city worked to redevelop the location which previously was home to several houses, Brewers Oil and Klein Honey Farm. A Storm Sewer from Tiger Lake to the river which bisected the property was relocated to the street.

A large board of directors was formed and was made up by individuals who stepped forward to be involved. This group did fundraising, facility planning and laid out operational plans. Recognizing the need for sound facility management and quality programming in the facility, the board of directors chose to move from a community activity center to a YMCA that embraced all of the goals of the recommendations of the Mayor’s Blue-Ribbon Task Force.

— Robert Byrnes is the mayor of Marshall