Spring Green, Wisconsin
Thursday, December 12, 2024 | Vol. 5, No. 22 FREE, Single-Copy
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Wisconsin River Valley nonprofit seeks to solve problems, foster community
The Wisconsin Examiner profiles our very own River Valley Commons
adds, whether they’re service clubs, local libraries, individual local government bodies or other groups.
Erik Gunn, Wisconsin Examiner In a purple corner of Wisconsin that reflects both the struggles and the promise of the state’s rural communities, a nonprofit group is trying to forge a path beyond isolation and political polarization. River Valley Commons began six years ago with a lecture series to help residents of the village of Spring Green and the surrounding towns build community, expand critical thinking and foster hope and a sense of agency. Today the organization connects disparate groups to address the concerns and needs of residents across a threecounty area. Stephanie “Stef” Morrill-Kerckhoff launched both the lecture series and River Valley Commons in 2019 after asking herself, “what can we do to increase the well-being of our area and the people who live in it?” she says. “And how can we do that collaboratively and in a way that brings in as many people, as many organizations, as we can?” Stef and Joshua Morrill moved to the Wisconsin River valley area near Spring Green in 2013. Both were natives of western New York where the Chautauqua Institution, a nonprofit learning community and educational center, was founded 150 years ago and still operates. The couple “felt like we would love to do something similar, where we could bring people together in a lovely natural space to learn and share information,” Stef Morrill-Kerckhoff says. They began organizing the first lecture series, working with the University of WisconsinMadison Continuing Studies program, when Joshua Morrill died suddenly in February 2019. The lecture program, usually held at the
Pandemic launch
Photo by Greg Conniff via the Wisconsin Examiner A red barn in rural Wisconsin. Octagon Barn, a distinctive rustic-looking venue northwest of Spring Green, became a memorial to Josh Morrill. His widow decided not to stop there. Since they had first moved to the region, the couple perceived a gap between the interest of local residents in addressing community needs and the wherewithal to reach their goals. “One of the things that we had always wanted to do is to help with that … just getting people together to talk about things, trying to move forward with solving problems, whatever they were,” says Morrill-Kerckhoff, who has since remarried. The organization set its boundaries as the River Valley School District, with 11,000 residents and covering more than 400 square miles. Within the district are four villages and portions of nearly a dozen towns. “The communities are different, but if you look at the broader picture, we all need broadband, we all need housing, we all need child care,” says Joy Kirkpatrick, the board chair of River Valley Commons who works for the University of Wisconsin
Extension. The organization’s work is informed by a desire to address the general problem social scientist Robert Putnam diagnosed in “Bowling Alone.” The book, first published in the year 2000, analyzes the erosion of communal and civic life as engagement has declined among neighbors and with public institutions over the last half-century, fraying the social fabric. “Whatever the reason, the civic groups and the clubs and the bowling league and the churches, indeed, dwindled, and we’re more alone in our houses,” said the author Sarah Smarsh, citing Putnam’s book when she spoke in August as part of the Morrill Lecture Series. In early November, the series showed the documentary “Join or Die,” based on Putnam’s work, about the importance of participating in clubs and organizations as a component of healthier living for individuals as well as communities. The goal of River Valley Commons isn’t to replace existing civic organizations but to help connect them with one another and “lift them up,” Kirkpatrick
By the time River Valley Commons officially got off the ground, the COVID-19 pandemic was just setting in. That redirected the organization’s initial mission toward fundraising for food pantries, including from people who were donating their federal pandemic relief checks. “That wasn’t how I expected to start, but it was a way that we were able to provide some value very quickly, in an unexpected thing we were able to help with,” MorrillKerckhoff says. Since then, the organization has focused on “helping people and organizations with ideas they have that they want to implement, or problems that they perceive in the community that they want to work on.” One such project started in Spring Green. The Sauk County village has grown into one of Wisconsin’s prime tourist destinations on the strength of the nationally renowned American Players Theatre along with the quirky House on the Rock and the Frank Lloyd Wright Taliesin studio. When some visitors in 2021 stopped Spring Green resident Patti Peltier on the street and asked about a place to eat, “I couldn’t think of any place that was open to direct tourists too,” Peltier says. “I took this concern to Stef, and we started looking for what sort of things could serve as an economic engine for our community.” The result was Savor the River Valley, bringing together restaurants, shops, small farmers and food processors to help support and promote each other. Peltier, a retired corporate marketing
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