“We're in the initial stages of communicating with some of the regional and state disaster coordinators,” Petrovich said. Army Corps of Engineers and Department of Defense, is heading up efforts to ready the facility to serve the region during a potential disaster. Paul Petrovich, who has worked with the U.S. One of the center’s most important functions is as an emergency shelter. So basically, I'm setting it up and inspiring people to go.” “There's two big cabinets … that are going to be for whoever else wants to work in here or teach in here. “My mosaic studio is getting moved over here,” Boucha said. Tricia Boucha, an artist and instructor living in Kaleva, is looking to provide art and cooking courses in one of the classrooms. Plans are also moving forward to restore and reopen the school gymnasium and to potentially open an exercise room at the center, Beldo said.Ĭommittee members hope the former school can also be used for its original purpose of education. The facility has opened to allow walkers a warm place for exercising, starting Jan. The food pantry takes place on the first Friday of each month. John Makinen, the Kaleva Food Pantry chairman, said that refrigerators and other equipment are being moved to the pantry’s new permanent location at the former school. No official date has been set aside for the move, but Beldo said that space in the new building is much better suited for voting and public meetings.īethany Lutheran Church in Kaleva is also moving its food pantry to the community center, and is set to hold its first distribution there from 10 a.m. and the township office is at 9213 Aura St. The village office is located at 9219 Aura St. These include the government offices for Maple Grove Township and the Village of Kaleva, which have adjoining space set aside at the community center. With the community center opening, several individuals and organizations have expressed interest in moving their operations to the new central location in Kaleva. “We have had more people join us each week who are wanting to help and who have ideas.” “Everybody is really excited about the possibilities of what can be here,” Asiala said. The 20,000 square foot facility has reopened on a limited basis for walking, but Asiala said that volunteer committee members are preparing its ample space for a myriad of other purposes. “The school has taken out what they wanted and finished their business here, so it is now the property of the Maple Grove Township community.”Īsiala and the community center committee has partnered with the township to reopen the building for public use. “Thank goodness the township decided that waiting was not going to keep going on and they stepped in,” said Cynthia Asiala, chair of the Maple Grove Township Community Center Committee. It has been estimated that the community would finish paying off bonds used for the latest expansion in around a decade. Because Kaleva Norman Dickson Schools owed a bond on the property, it was necessary to purchase the building at fair market value. The school first opened in the early 1960s and with additions in the 1990s and early 2000s. “There have been three or four different groups that have gotten together and tried to figure it out, and I decided that the only way this is going to get off the ground was if the township got involved,” he said. Several groups had been formed over the past decade in the hopes of putting the building - one of Kaleva’s largest - to good use, Beldo said. They also had liability concerns so nothing really got off the ground,” Beldo said. “We wanted to be able to use the buildings but the school had restrictions as far as what they could do. Utilizing the school for the Kaleva community has long been a goal of residents and local officials, according to Wayne Beldo, Maple Grove Township superintendent.
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