Community Hall Meeting

I attended the meeting for the Marblemount Community Hall last night. The good news is that the hall won’t be foreclosed on. The bad news is that the debt that resulted in the possible foreclosure won’t be forgiven. However, this isn’t all bad news because we will have a little leeway to get the debt paid off.

Some of the following talk involved ideas for fundraisers to raise money not only to pay off the debt but also to keep operating. This can be really tricky because one of the better fundraising activities involves cooking and selling food and runs the risk of cutting into the margins of businesses in town that probably don’t have very big margins to start with. We want to maintain good relationships with the businesses in town and you can't do that by putting them out of business.

The Community Hall is a place available for people to gather for meetings or hold events (Sacha and I were married there). It is where the Red Cross would set up in case of disaster and the volunteer fire department building is on its land. It seems that people use it pretty regularly. 

The hall is basically run as a community service and doesn’t make a profit. In fact it is a struggle every year to come up with enough money to keep the hall open. In fact, if it were not for the herculean efforts of just a few people it would have closed by now. Over the years I have seen these few people give freely and generously of their time and resources to keep things going for no pay, no compensation and rarely even a thanks. Personally, I could have helped more but didn't.  

Due to the way the Community Hall was originally created, it doesn’t qualify for 501 3C non profit status. It was originally called the Marblemount Community Club and club memebers paid dues and contributed to its upkeep. It was a civic club not an exclusive club and it provided many important community services for free or at low cost. If the Community Hall was a 501 3C, the debt would probably have been forgiven without much trouble and more people and businesses would be willing to donate because they could write it off as a tax break. This was talked about as well.

Incorporating as a 501 3C is a little complicated. There are a lot of hoops to jump through and it will take time to get things written up properly. We haven’t even identified someone who might help with this or how much that will cost. This is a slow process as we are a small group with busy lives and not a lot of outside resources or networks and not a lot of money in the local community.

It seems like there were more resources back in the era when the Community Hall was started, more money and more people available to help. I have the impression that there were more businesses with more wealth that were based here and were willing to donate and help out with an eye on civic responsibility rather than the bottom line. I wouldn’t doubt that many of the viable businesses here now are getting a little tired of being solicited for donations on a regular basis because there a fewer of them around to spread out the pressure for such things.

All of the stuff about acquiring funds and paying the bills is hard to figure out at the end of the day when you are tired from work. It seems that we, like some other groups in eastern Skagit County are kind of stumbling from crisis to crisis trying to keep our heads above water. I don’t think things are impossible now, just hard and slow. And it seems like more people may be interested in getting involved with the hall. I only hope the people we will be soliciting for funds don’t get burnt out on the steady stream of fundraisers.