Omaha Public Schools Places Trust in The Community Rejecting $630,000 Bid

Community leaders celebrate moments after the OPS board voted in favor of Yates Illuminates. Image courtesy of Adrian Petrescu.

BY EMILY CHEN-NEWTON

Omaha Public Schools turned down a bid from a regional property management company for $630,000 instead, placing trust in the Gifford Park neighborhood and their reputation for true grassroots change. Gifford Park community members rallied together about a year ago when the historic Yates Building on Davenport street owned by OPS was slated to be sold no longer offering critical services to immigrants and refugees as it had done in the past. At Monday’s school board meeting (November 16th), despite the much smaller offering of $100,000, votes were cast 6-1 in favor of selling the building to the group Yates Illuminates formed by Gifford Park neighbors and other Omaha partners.

This is not the first time Gifford Park has advocated for and garnered change in their corner of Omaha. The OPS elementary school in the neighborhood built last year was influenced in large part by the neighborhood association. So it was only natural they would also fight to maintain the integrity of the Yates programs and the warmth of the historic building felt by anyone who walks into it. 

The Weitz Family Foundation has backed Yates Illuminates with initial support and will have an office in the building, helping to manifest one of Illuminates’ goals, to become a nonprofit incubator for local groups to build their dream programs. Other members of this dream team include the Chamber of Commerce, Metro Community College, and the Gifford Park Neighborhood Association. 

Their written proposal invited board members to

imagine the smell of samosas being cooked in a certified commercial kitchen as you enter the building, then maybe you hear “someone sounding out words...you find over a dozen refugee and immigrant adults learning English through Metro Community College’s ESL program...Going down the steps to the basement, you find a huge community donation center. A family from Bhutan just moved to Omaha from Texas, and they are finding the bed frame they need...Room after room, there are support services and educational opportunities for people of all walks of life.”

Those who spoke at the school board meeting emphasized the unique diversity of the Gifford Park Neighborhood is maintained in part by the Yates programming currently offered to immigrant and refugee families. Their formal proposal read, “the diversity, the opportunities, and the feeling of inclusion make you feel like you have walked into a very special place in Omaha.”

This is the dream developed by friends and neighbors then set into action by 6 individuals choosing community over profit on Omaha’s School Board. 

“How fitting, that it would later become one of the largest local resources to a diverse group of people from near and far since Mr. Yates himself was not from Omaha but he came here, made it his home, and loved his community. How fitting, that it would serve as a place for educational enlightenment for both old and young since Mr. Yates himself was unable to finish school as he wished.” - Community member Justine Stanley speaking to the school board.

Justine Stanley told the board, Mrs.Yates sold that “beautiful building” to OPS because she trusted it would be upheld as an educational institution as promised.