Summit Center aims for restart

By Robb Murray
The Free Press

MANKATO July 06, 2006 01:18 am

— Come July 15, the Summit Center as we know it will cease to exist.
The venerable senior citizen gathering place will be back, however, after a few months of refocusing, retooling and reloading.
Summit Center officials announced Wednesday the doors on the senior citizen gathering place will close July 15. They’re calling it the end of one stage in the organization’s life and the beginning of another.
Executive Director Linda Jacoby — who took the helm May 8 — says the center will reopen in a few months with a new vision.
Jacoby says the center hopes to take some of the initiatives discussed in the Envision 2020 meetings and incorporate them into the new vision. (Envision 2020 is a regional endeavor aimed at coming up with a strategic plan for improving the area’s quality of life.)
“It’s an exciting time,” Jacoby said. “(We’ll be figuring out) what we want to be, what do we want to look like.”
Neither Jacoby nor Sue Ostendorf, chairwoman of the Summit Center Board, would give specifics about how things will change for the center. But they did say they want to reach more seniors than the center now does.
As the nation’s population ages, the boundaries of traditional senior citizen activity are disappearing. Today’s seniors are a lot more active, and the Summit Center hopes to be involved in their lives, too. The center hopes to market itself better and reach as many people as possible.
“That’s what we haven’t really been doing in the past,” Ostendorf said, “but we’d like to do more of it in the future.”
For now, the center plans to reopen in its existing location. There may be some remodeling, some sprucing up of the place. In the meantime, members will be kept abreast of temporary locations for some programming. No employees will lose their jobs.
Jacoby said they plan to update the center’s Web site (summit-center.org) with news about the new and improved Summit Center. They may be announcing partnerships with other Mankato-area organizations, as well. She said she’s been in contact with many of them about possibly teaming up for various endeavors, but she declined to specify which organizations.
And while the center plans to reopen in a few months in its current location, Jacoby said that doesn’t mean they are committing to staying there. It’s been well known the Summit Center has wanted a new location.
The Summit Center has been somewhat plagued recently with leadership issues. Two previous directors have been fired — including Noell Reed, who filed a Human Rights Department complaint against the center, claiming the center forced her out because she became ill with cancer.
When asked whether the recent leadership issues had any impact on their decision to declare an end of an era, Ostendorf said “yes and no.” Jacoby’s skills, Ostendorf said, were such that, for the first time, the Summit Center has the kind of leadership capable of taking the organization to the next level.
Updates on the Summit Center will be available on its Web site or by calling 345-5262.

Center has a history of movement
The existence of an organized senior center in Mankato dates back to the late 1950s.
It began when a group of area residents formed the Mankato Area Committee on Aging and set about the task of surveying the needs and wants of Mankato’s senior population. The group learned that seniors wanted a “sociability — to play cards, pursue crafts and hobbies — and to remain in the mainstream of society,” according to local historian Vern Lundin.
For the first few years, the group existed without a permanent home, instead holding gatherings in area churches or clubs. Eventually, the YWCA on the corner of Warren and Second streets in downtown Mankato became home to their weekly gatherings.
But the numbers of seniors attending events grew, and they needed a place of their own. They got their wish when a local man purchased a house on Broad Street and rented it to the Senior Citizens Committee. The Senior Citizens Center opened its doors on April 1, 1967.
By the early 1970s, however, that house was not longer big enough for the level of daily activity it was getting. And in 1978, the center moved to its current home after purchasing the Newman Center complex — which was owned by the Diocese of Winona and included parking lots on Cherry and Warren streets. The building also houses the Blue Earth County Historical Society.