Great Place Projects continue to enhance community

Although 2021 had its share of challenges, according to Cook County Chamber Executive Director Jim Boyd, it was also a summer of incredible creativity for groups and individuals who received 2021 Great Place Project grants from the Cook County Business and Civic Partnership – the philanthropic arm of the Cook County Chamber.

It will take a little time before all of the projects funded will come to fruition, but Chamber Director Jim Boyd shared information on those that were completed this year.

They are spread throughout the county, with one project near the end of the Gunflint Trail, at the Chik Wauk Museum and Nature Center. Chik Wauk used its grant to commission five painted benches from Ojibwe artist and educator Sam Zimmerman of Duluth and Grand Portage.

The benches have been installed along paths at Chik-Wauk for the ease of visitors. Boyd told WTIP, “They are simply stunning, even more so when you are able to see them in their setting. Chik-Wauk is closing for the season, but these benches will be there to grace its trails and enthrall its visitors for years to come.”

Several projects enhance the Lutsen community, the first, a butterfly garden at County Plumbing in Lutsen. Confronted with a need to control runoff and also provide additional parking, Tanya Miller and Tim Goettl at County Plumbing came up with the idea of a butterfly garden.

When they received the grant, they lost no time in getting the butterfly garden installed. At one point, Tanya reported 30 Monarch butterfly caterpillars on the garden’s milkweed plants. Director Boyd said, “The garden is a terrific addition to a busy business area in Lutsen.”

Nearby, the Homyak family at Lutsen’s Clearview General Store created a welcome park-like retreat by adding Great Place Project picnic benches to the lawn beneath their splendid grove of spruce on both sides of Clearview. The Homyaks report that the benches are being well used by locals and visitors alike.

The third Lutsen project enhances the entrance to the Isak Hansen Lumber and Home Center. The hardware store crew created a promising young garden out front that should grow into a magnificent addition. The garden was part of a much larger effort to improve the looks of the building, including a coat of paint. 

In Tofte, the North Shore Commercial Fishing Museum, a project of the Tofte Historical Society, supports a series of signs, including one with an oral Voice of the Past, along the Tofte lakewalk. The signs share the history of commercial fishing in the area. Two of the signs had become so damaged they were difficult to read, and the Voices of the Past needed a new battery. With a Great Place Project grant, the museum was able to effect repairs to both the signs and the Voices.

At the Cook County Community YMCA in Grand Marais, the Great Place Project has contributed significantly to the play area for toddlers out front. In 2021, YMCA director Emily Marshall requested funds to add plantings that would make the area more pleasant. Children at the YMCA daycare were recruited to plant the seeds and watch them grow.

YMCA Director Marshall reports, “Our little people learned a lot and took great pride in picking out plants to plan in their ‘Great Place.’ They loved watering the flowers and plants and especially loved watching them grow and eating them for snack! Thank you so much for turning this into a great place.”
 
The money to fund Great Place Project grants was raised from several large private donations plus the proceeds from an annual canoe raffle.

WTIP’s Rhonda Silence sat down with Chamber Director Jim Boyd to hear what it has been like to be involved with projects in the past and about the 2021 awardees. Here’s their conversation.