Yates Illuminates Awarded $1 Million in ARPA Funding
The former Yates Elementary School in Gifford Park on Apr. 11, 2022. Photo credit: Lyndsay Dunn NOISE
By Jonathan Short
Back in November of 2020, the fate of the former Yates Elementary School building hung in the balance of seven votes. The Omaha Public Schools (OPS) Board of Education had the choice between selling the building and all its history to a Colorado developer for the price of $630,000 or to a local non-profit for $100,000.
The smaller local bid eventually prevailed, and at the roots of the triumph was an entire community that rallied behind one common goal— save Yates.
The Process
When OPS declared the building as surplus and began searching for a potential buyer, the Gifford Park Neighborhood Association (GPNA) stepped up to the plate. At a pre-COVID-19 GPNA visioning session in early 2020, neighbors, business owners, nonprofits, and political candidates alike discussed a potential future at Yates. They spoke about what the building means, what it could be, and what the Gifford Park neighborhood needed.
Katie Weitz, PhD. Photo Credit: Weitz Family Foundation
One of many in attendance was Katie Weitz, executive director for the Weitz Family Foundation (WFF). In an interview with NOISE, Weitz said that she’d never been to a neighborhood meeting “so well attended,” and from there she joined the effort to save Yates.
The following months brought more GPNA meetings to compile lists of nonprofits that might be interested. There were talks with OPS who wanted to maintain an educational purpose for the building. There were community members showing up to school board meetings and testifying. It was truly a complete, collaborative effort by everyone involved.
ARPA Funding Secured
Now, nearly 18 months later, the grassroots effort branded Yates Illuminates, has been awarded $1 million in ARPA funding. The money will go directly toward renovation of the project site to provide social and mental health services geared towards the immigrant and refugee communities.
“It was huge,” Weitz said of the ARPA funding. The grant brings Yates Illuminates to within 90% of its fundraising goal.
The renovation of the building has already begun, starting with repair of windows, shoring up the retaining wall, fixing the roof, and adding an elevator to make it more accessible for people with disabilities.
Weitz said between 70 and 80 percent of the businesses hired to make these renovations are “small emerging businesses, Black and Brown or women-owned businesses, and businesses from the neighborhood,” adding that the funds spent to renovate and activate the site are spent with the populations most disproportionately affected by COVID-19.
The funding will go toward things like pods for therapeutic practices and upgrades to the kitchen, shared spaces and facility systems.
Yates will become a safe space for the community owing to the behavioral and mental health services that will be provided, “specifically for people with trauma,” Weitz said. Yates will be more than just psychiatrists and social workers. It will be a place where everyone in the community can come to “share meals together, where they can talk with each other,” she said.
“This world has been so disheartening and scary and tumultuous, and it just feels like the world is on fire. But Yates really does bring so much hope.”
Adrian Petrescu gathering signatures for the 2020 campaign to save the Yates building and its programming for immigrant and refugee families. Image credit: Adrian Petrescu
Sub-contractors and small emerging businesses working on the building are a part of REACH, an educational program providing training for construction entrepreneurs and independent contractors in Omaha. “They’re making sure the people working on the building are also having meaningful learning experiences with the community.”
“Everything that happens at Yates is educational,” Weitz said.
In a time of history defined by sickness and death brought about by the pandemic, Yates Illuminates is a bright exception."
“This world has been so disheartening and scary and tumultuous, and it just feels like the world is on fire,” Weitz said, “But Yates really does bring so much hope.”
Although Yates Illuminates is close to reaching its fundraising goal, the organization hopes to raise the remaining funds in May through Do Good Days with SHARE Omaha.
