906 Adventure Team + Marquette County Rotarians: Getting things done together
I’m going to start at the beginning. Imagine you’re building a successful youth bike club called “Adventure Bike Club,” and going into next spring, you need to get a trailer, but you don’t have the money. What would you do? You’d go looking for a partner.
That was 906AT in 2017.
We were largely unknown, under the radar, and looking for help, but we didn’t find it; it came to us. Scott Knaffla, on behalf of local Rotarians, asked how they could help. He was aware of what we were doing but, like most, needed to figure out where we were trying to go, so he reached out because he saw value in the work. One thing led to another, and before we knew it, we bought our first trailer with money from Rotary.
Fast forward – it’s 2023. We have ten communities and more trailers, and we just bought a property at 955 North Lakeshore Boulevard in the heart of east Marquette’s residential district. We’ve shared what we know – we have an office and two acres to build a community park. It’s a chance to bring the trailhead and adventure to residents’ backyards. There’s a lot of stuff we need to do:
Raise the money.
Hire an architect and builder.
Create a site plan.
Have the site plan approved.
Build it.
Who reaches out? You guessed it – our local Rotary clubs. Scott stopped by for a tour and to learn more about the plan. He offered their help for a work bee as soon as the snow melts (ironically, today is April 27, and as I write this update, it’s still snowing) and wanted to learn more about the park and our funding.
That was about five weeks ago. Since then, we’ve scheduled a work bee for May 13 from 10:00 am – 2:00 pm here at Basecamp, AND the local Rotary clubs put together a $7,500 grant they hope to turn into $15,000 with a national grant match. Once again, they came to us. It’s hard to turn your gratitude into words because it falls short no matter what you put on paper. It’s fair to say that this type of support will create the momentum we need to get the job done. Thank you, Rotarians.
If you want to join the community effort to build the Bike & Adventure Park, please visit the Basecamp landing page on our newly redesigned website here: https://906adventureteam.com/about-906at/basecamp/
