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Ely Echo Editorial
It was about this time last year that the Ely community rallied together and provided a lifeline of sorts to the community’s struggling nursing home.
Before state lawmakers came to the rescue with a badly-needed infusion of state funding, the Boundary Waters Care Center turned to the Ely community at large and sought donations aimed at keeping the doors open and the lights on.
While circumstances aren’t quite as dire at Ely Community Resource, development this week reveal that the valuable nonprofit needs help to get through some rough waters.
A couple of sources of grant funding have dried up and ECR officials are scrambling to come up with new ways to support a simple, yet worthy, mission: to foster positive youth development through youth activities designed to increase self esteem, build a sense of community and provide positive adult relationships that allow effective interventions.
That’s a long way of saying that ECR is hear to help the kids of the Ely area, and the agency has a half-century of history and evidence to back that claim up.
Through an assortment of programs, ECR reaches out to and works with Ely’s youth, both during school hours and after, to guide them, mentor them and simply to help them.
The quarterly reports ECR provides to local units of government are voluminous and outline the essential work its staff members do with kids ranging from kindergarten through high school.
Whether it’s helping with homework or providing a safe and fun place to be after school, whether it’s one of many clubs or the agency’s family resource facilitating work, whether it’s mentoring youth or checking up on kids who may have struggles at home, it’s ECR that steps up to the plate and provides these needed services in town.
Remember the old saying “an ounce of prevention beats a pound of cure?” That’s what ECR does every day in the Ely area, and often times filling gaps and helping kids who need help the most.
That’s why it’s concerning to hear that the agency is facing some financial challenges - and really through no fault of its own.
The agency has been caught in the middle in one particular case, as funding for one initiative transitions from the federal to state level, with little money to fill the gap in between.
There’s also more competition for grant dollars than ever, with executive director Julie Hignell describing one program this week that had only one dollar of funding for every three requested.
The end result is a tight budget for ECR and renewed efforts to find additional grant support.
Hignell was hopeful if not optimistic this week that the agency would find new dollars to replace those that were lost, but ECR seems to face a never-ending quest to come up with grant funding to support its mission.
That’s where the public may be able to come in and lend a helping hand.
ECR has made it easy for community members to contribute to the cause, setting up a QR code right on its website - at elycommunityresource. org - that sets up a link to contribute via PayPal.
For those not into the high-tech ways of online payments, one can simply write out a check, put it in an envelope with a stamp and send it to: Ely Community Resource, 111 S 4th Ave. E, Ely, MN 55731.
Community support helped the nursing home find its way a year ago and perhaps lightning can strike twice and ECR can benefit from similar support. A helping hand from all of us may be just what the agency needs as it looks for longterm sustaining funds.
ECR has done good work in Ely for almost 50 years, and our youth need their support more than ever.
