Elkhart

Live in Elkhart County for more than a few days and you see that our waterways are drop-dead gorgeous.

Chuck Drake knows this, even though he moved away from Elkhart County years ago. He’s a member of the I Grew Up in Elkhart, IN group on Facebook and shared this memory recently:

Since we have the St. Joe cutting through town offering a sort of majestic beauty and leisure time, I generally took the Elkhart River for granted as I was growing up. Truth is, it’s a pretty cool river in its own right. The river starts from Port Mitchell Lake and Waldron Lake and merges to form the Elkhart River west of Wawaka, Indiana. It flows generally Northwestward through Benton and then turns northward. It then flows through Bainter Town and Waterford Mills into the Goshen Dam Pond. From there it flows northwest through Goshen, Dunlap and Elkhart and, after it’s 50 mile journey, into the St. Joe River at Island Park. The river lends itself perfectly to the kayaking craze and, with plans to remove the dam near downtown, fishing and kayaking can only get even better.

We couldn’t agree more, Chuck. The summer is a great time to go tubing in the creek or for some fishing.

Whatever you do, we encourage you to get out and enjoy the beauty of Elkhart County’s waterways, parks and trails.

We are more than ready for summer. How about you?

Elkhart County’s parks — including in the cities and towns — have an almost incredible diversity of recreation opportunities, everything from swimming and canoeing/kayaking, to tennis, volleyball or Ultimate Frisbee, to hiking, bicycling and bird watching.

Gerrod Hampel (left) helps a participant try archery at Ox Bow County Park on May 15, 2019.

On Wednesday, May 15, the Vibrant Communities Community Champions Roundtable gathered in Ox Bow County Park to learn more about recreation opportunities in the parks, trails and waterways.

There were exhibits by Elkhart County Parks, Pumpkinvine Nature Trail, Quaker Trace Trail, Fluid Fun Canoe and Kayak and Orienteering USA.

In addition, participants enjoyed demonstrations and got to try their hand at archery with some instruction from Gerrod Hampel and canoeing with some equipment contributed by the Goshen Parks & Recreation Department.

Hey, Elkhart County, the spring season in 2019 is not just when flowers bloom, trees bud with new life, and nature awakens for a warm days.

Nope, the incredible growth also extends to all the projects getting off the ground throughout our wonderful cities, from the Elkhart aquatics center to Goshen Theater to Wa-Nee Vision 2020, along with the small business development that has been sparked.

To help you catch up, here’s the best of the news coverage in recent weeks:

‘Elkhart Renaissance’

In a half-hour-long episode of “Economic Outlook on WNIT, Diana Lawson of the Elkhart County Convention & Visitors Bureau, Dan Boecher of the Hotel Elkhart development, and Kevin Milak of the Elkhart aquatics center described the effects of multiple new developments on Elkhart’s downtown.

Along with the aquatics center, expected to open in summer 2019, workers are renovating the Hotel Elkhart to serve as a boutique hotel serving visitors and business travelers, while the Stonewater apartment complex continues to rise on the banks of the Elkhart River.

Watch the episode here.

Creating a movement

South Bend Tribune columnist Marshall V. King writes of the progress Elkhart County is making in collaborating and overcoming age-old turf issues to create a movement in which residents and organizations feel empowered to work on projects of interest to them.

A diverse calendar of family-friendly and fun events is among the achievements of Elkhart County’s cities and towns with Vibrant Communities’ support.

“The work of making a place better to live is hard to measure, most often seen when people move back or some new festival, restaurant or development gets people excited about where they live. The work isn’t ever done, but as the Report to the Community shows, it’s progressing well,” King wrote.

Regional awareness

The work being done in Elkhart, Goshen, Nappanee, Wakarusa, Middlebury and Bristol is being noticed across Indiana, with the influential Inside Indiana Business offering its own take.

Elkhart County and its cities and towns are getting more done, working together on projects and reaping the benefits of an emphasis on investing in quality of place and placemaking.

The Vibrant Communities movement gathered the community to celebrate these achievements of Elkhart County residents at an event on Thursday, March 21, 2019, in Elkhart.

Three years after unveiling an ambitious and grassroots-driven 77-item Action Agenda, Vibrant Communities organizers released its Report to the Community. The centerpiece of the report is a comprehensive audit of the Action Agenda showing that 52 of the 77 items are either in progress or complete.

The Action Agenda items were developed in 2016 based on community input at a series of public meetings attended by more than 1,000.

“We are excited about how much Elkhart County residents have accomplished in three years, and we think even better things are to come as we continue to invest in quality of place and placemaking,” said Suzie Weirick, co-chair of the Vibrant Communities movement.

• Click here to view and download the full report.

Engaged residents and leaders from across Elkhart County gathered at LEX 530 event center in Elkhart to see the report and to celebrate the successes of each city and town as well as programs such as the Little BIG Idea Grants and 365 Vibrant People of Elkhart County.

Residents of Elkhart County enjoy the presentation of the Report to the Community.

From high-visibility public-private projects such as the Elkhart aquatics center, Goshen Theater, Wa-Nee Vision 2020 and Middlebury improvements to the town center and parks, to initiatives that seek to improve community gateways and to boost educational resources, the audit gives a full assessment of what has been achieved and, just as importantly, suggestions for what needs to happen on projects that haven’t been started.

“Elkhart County is a community of makers, and there’s no doubt we have been busy making a difference in our cities and towns,” said Arvis Dawson, co-chair. “The buy-in we’ve had from across the county has been tremendous and shows how invested and how attached we are to our hometowns.”

The 73-page report includes summaries from each of Elkhart County’s cities and towns — Elkhart, Goshen, Nappanee, Bristol, Middlebury and Wakarusa, and reports on some of the largest projects being undertaken.

The report also looks forward, laying out several future goals which include developing a placemaking academy to provide technical assistance and education for individuals and groups who are interested in converting their ideas to reality. Vibrant Communities also intends to champion and support local efforts to engage younger members of the community, to continue advocacy of quality-of-place principles, and to build a countywide framework for promoting the region.

“We are just as inspired today as we were in 2016. We’re in a great position to build on these successes and to inspire more Elkhart County residents to jump in and build on our movement,” said Weirick.

Vibrant Communities co-chairs Suzie Weirick and Arvis Dawson share a laugh during the presentation of the Report to the Community on Thursday, March 21, 2019.

Since 2016, leaders in every community have helped in the launch of various initiatives such as the Elkhart County Food Council, the Waterways Alliance and arts councils in Elkhart, Goshen, Nappanee and Middlebury. The Elkhart County Convention & Visitors Bureau and Community Foundation of Elkhart County, co-sponsors of Vibrant Communities, also provided funding to the Little BIG Idea Grant program that offered micro-grants for fun, quirky, community-based projects. The 365 Vibrant People of Elkhart County celebrates the energetic doers who make our community great.

Vibrant Communities was initiated and sponsored by the Elkhart County Convention & Visitors Bureau and Community Foundation of Elkhart County in 2016. This movement’s focus is on the connection between Elkhart County’s economic vitality and quality of place. It champions projects and programs that support quality of place and placemaking. Its mission is to inspire people to love Elkhart County. For more information, go to www.vibrantelkhartcounty.org.

NAPPANEE — What happens when you put 53 community-minded and creative people in one room?

Tons of great ideas and a strong likelihood that an amazing and beautiful arts project might be the result.

On Thursday, Feb. 7, Vibrant Communities organizers convened leaders from all over Elkhart County at the Nappanee Center to talk about the arts and how much it contributes to the richness and diversity of living here.

The meeting was the third in the series of Community Champions Roundtables in which representatives of arts, business and commerce, tourism and hospitality, and government organizations assemble for in-depth conversation about quality of place.

Since the Vibrant Communities movement launched in January 2016, Goshen, Nappanee and Middlebury have started arts councils, joining the expanding roster of strong and thriving arts organizations.

The Community Champions Roundtable discussion on the arts and placemaking attracted 53 attendees on Thursday, Feb. 7, 2019, to the Nappanee Center.

Steve Gruber of the Elkhart Arts Alliance says that commerce around the arts “adds enormously to the economy. It’s not a luxury, but a driver (of economic activity).”

Gruber cited the success of Premier Arts in training the artists of the future while also offering classes and staging musicals that generate about 25 percent of the revenues collected by the Lerner Theatre in Elkhart.

Jeff Stillson, who started the Nappanee Arts Council in 2018, said, “Any time you see art, it’s an event.”

The Nappanee Arts Council is the driving force behind a rotating series of public art exhibitions in downtown Nappanee, starting in 2018 with Flower Gardens Art in Bloom and continuing in 2019 with Junkyard Dogs.

Zach Tate, co-founder of Goshen Youth Arts, said opportunities for young artists to learn and practice their craft go far beyond preparing them for potential careers in artistic fields. Even if a student does not start a career in the arts, art education nurtures outside-the-box thinking and creativity that can help them in other careers, said Tate.

Participants in the Community Champions Roundtable on Thursday, Feb. 7, 2019, discuss potential communitywide arts projects in Elkhart County. After dividing into groups, the participants proposed nine ideas ranging from a community mosaic to filling unused billboards with public art.

The session concluded with a brainstorming exercise in which each participate came up with three ideas for arts projects, then broke into groups consisting of similar ideas. Those groups then pitched their idea for a countywide arts project.

The ideas presented were:

• Commission public art in all parts of the county, not just in downtown areas.
• An arts event that occurs in each city and town at the same time.
• An arts event with a focus on hands-on activities and creating your own art.
• An event that “mobilizes creativity,” making art throughout the community, then bringing it together to create a larger, cohesive piece.
• Create public art in neighborhoods, then offering tours of each piece.
• Filling vacant and unused billboards with art.
• Instituting an “arts day” in which students can learn more about careers in the arts and career pathways for those jobs.
• Creating wearable and/or touchable art for the community.
• Community paint-by-the-numbers to create a mosaic of community art.

Stay tuned on the next steps from these artsy ideas.