October 2022

The YES! House, an in-progress creative community gathering space in downtown Granite Falls, is looking for local residents to help shape the future! YES! House Futures (YHF) is a nine-month process to establish a shared vision for the future operations and stewardship of The YES! House Building. The vision will be created by a seven- member committee of local community members with input gathered from the public through planned events and activities. At the end of this process, there will be a vision statement that will inform the development of a five-year planning document outlining the future operations and stewardship of The YES! House building. The programming and design of The YES! House, located at 726 Prentice Street, emerged through a year-long (and ongoing) community engagement process beginning in 2019 in which local community members collaborated with local and national artists and architects to dream and plan. The current plans include a performance venue, flexible art gallery, audio recording studio, and multidisciplinary creative studio space and media lab. “We look forward to working with committee members to identify opportunities for collaboration and resource sharing between The YES! House and local businesses and organizations and to explore other business and stewardship models for the building,” said Sarina Otaibi, Creative Rural Building Program Director at the Department of Public Transformation (DoPT).

A trio of local folks, Leo Gunner Baker and his kids Leo C. Baker and Lakota Baker, recently spent time in the town of Litchfield helping film a movie titled “Uprising” which is based on a book of the same name written by Dean Urdahl. The film was directed by Christopher Forbes.

The WoMen’s Rural Advocacy Program, Inc. has been awarded a community impact grant from the United Way of Southwest Minnesota (UWSWMN) in the amount of $27,500. These funds will be used to subsidize current services provided to victims of domestic violence and sex trafficking and exploitation in Lincoln, Lyon, Yellow Medicine and western Redwood counties. This work aligns with UWSWMN’s safety & well-being priority area.

The annual Hearts, Hooves, and Heroes event was held at Lee-Mar Equine Center and Ranch on Friday, September 29th in order to honor all of the organization’s hardworking and dedicated volunteers. The event started with a cookout, followed by a short awards ceremony where there was a myriad of folks receiving recognition for all they do at the ranch, with others, and of course with the horses. The dinner reception and awards ceremony was held at the indoor arena at the ranch where it ended around 7 p.m.

Please be careful these next couple of months! While it seems like scams and schemes are everywhere, if you have Medicare it’s even more likely you’ll be targeted during the Open Enrollment Period. Advertisements, mailings, and pop-ups on the computer are designed to make you feel like you’re missing out on something whether it’s Medicare benefits you could be receiving or information on big changes happening with coverage.