Illinois River nonprofit buys building to expand outreach

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/RYAN McGEENEY 
Delia Haak, executive director of the Illinois River Watershed Partnership, sits inside the former Lakeview Baptist Church in Cave Springs. The church building will serve as the group’s new Watershed Learning Center, the partnership announced Wednesday.
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/RYAN McGEENEY Delia Haak, executive director of the Illinois River Watershed Partnership, sits inside the former Lakeview Baptist Church in Cave Springs. The church building will serve as the group’s new Watershed Learning Center, the partnership announced Wednesday.

CAVE SPRINGS - A nonprofit educational organization in Northwest Arkansas hopes to increase its outreach with the recent purchase of a vacant property.

The Illinois River Watershed Partnership, a 501(c)3 organization primarily funded through grants and educational revenue mandated by the federal Clean Water Act, purchased the former Lakeview Baptist Church in Cave Springs for $250,000 in mid-January, and plans to use the 9,000-square-foot building to host schoolchildren and other groups for educational visits, said Delia Haak, executive director of the partnership.

The former church, which still contains several dozen pews and an electronic organ, was built in 1957 and is adjacent to the small building that has served as the partnership’s headquarters and education center since the partnership began leasing it in 2012.

The buildings sit on a 31-acre property that also includes Loch Lono, a lake established in 1914 when the landowner dammed the stream flowing from nearby Bartlett’s Spring.

“We’ll be able to tell both the historical and environmental significance of the watershed,” Haak said.

The area has a concentration of natural features key to understanding the dynamics of a watershed, including a groundwater aquifer, a stream, a cave and several endangered or threatened species, Haak said.

Lauren Ray, the partnership’s educational outreach coordinator, said the new space will help the partnership to host much larger groups.

“We’ve had up to 100 kids in this really small building, here,” Ray said. “It’s been really crammed, as you can imagine.”

Ray said she hoped to begin hosting groups as large as 300 at one time.

The partnership was able to pay most of the purchase price in cash, thanks to grants from the Northwest Arkansas Economic Development District and Arkansas Rural Development, a state office of the U.S. Agriculture Department.

Mike Norton, executive director of the development district, located in Harrison, said his district awarded the partnership $105,000 for the acquisition of a building for a new learning center. Norton said the grant was one of the largest single awards out of nearly 200 grants awarded by the organization in 2013, some of which were for amounts as small as $500.

Haak said grants covered all but about $32,500 of the purchase price, for which the partnership took out a loan, and is now actively trying to pay down through donations and revenue.

Haak said the organization, formed in 2005, gives about 300 presentations each year, concentrating on conservation, ecology and pollution prevention. The federal Clean Water Act requires municipalities to educate their residents regarding aspects of water and the environment, and the Illinois River Watershed Partnership contracts with cities including Fayetteville, Bentonville, Rogers and Springdale to provide such educational opportunities.

The partnership’s 30-member board of directors will meet tonight at the organization’s new Watershed Learning Center at 221 S. Main St. in Cave Springs at 6 p.m. People are invited to tour the facility before the meeting.

Arkansas, Pages 8 on 02/06/2014

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