A light crowd met at the Salvation Army for a noon lunch of chili and cornbread while Hal Leland, Mark Bring and Zach Stach joined us virtually. Jamie Larson led us in invocation after President Ken called our meeting to order. Zach’s service report reminded us of our next opportunity to fill food bags at the United Way on February 28th and gave us a heads up that there will be a River Clean Up Day in conjunction with the City of Fergus Falls and other service clubs sometime in April. More to come on that. Brags & Fines: • Dean Monke bragged that he was in Barnum the past two days watching his daughter coach her basketball team at the high school there. • Ryan Welle threw in for missing last week and to brag that it was his father’s 76th birthday that day. Ryan wanted to be out sailing with him for the day, but couldn’t swing the $2,000 plane ticket. • Ken Harty bragged about The Daily Journal rolling out a new recognition program for fine arts students in Otter Tail County called The Golden Loon Award. Nominations are now open and the ceremony will be held April 19th at A Center for the arts. At 12:20 we departed to our onsite program at the Greater Fergus Falls (GFF) co-working space called The Foundry at the corner of Lincoln & Mill streets in downtown Fergus Falls. GFF CEO NeTia Bauman and Administrative Assistant, Patricia Wahl, greeted us and had warm Stumbeano’s coffee brewing when we arrived. NeTia provided an overview of the GFF Annual Report highlighting the organization’s mission, vision and progress in the organization’s three pillars of strategic framework: Business Retention & Expansion, Business Development & Attraction, and Economic Competitiveness. Among the statistics of note were that GFF has helped 65 start-up businesses and 184 entrepreneurs since 2020. Ways they proactively support businesses were shared by way of specific examples like TC Chocolate (manufacturing retention & expansion), Fresh & Fancy and Sugar High Bakery (retail retention & expansion), Dental Specialists of Fergus Falls (redevelopment), Fabled Farmer & Lake Cabin Deli Co. (business transfers), Amazon Last Mile Hub, and Cornerstone & Midwest Bevel Edge (adaptive re-use). NeTia also spoke about the commercial & industrial site database GFF manages, the Entrepreneur Mastermind Series GFF hosts, and the partnership they have with the Fergus Falls School district involving 9th graders who are taught lean start-up principles. She closed by sharing more about The Foundry and its co-working space, pop-up retail space, meeting space and training center as well as the coaching & consulting services offered there. Many Rotarians recalled when the space was the Arneson-Larson-Milton clothing store and everyone agreed it has been beautifully repurposed into a great space to showcase business opportunity in Fergus Falls.   |
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