Grants help breathe life back into Wetmore school
The halls of the former Wetmore Attendance Center may no longer ring with the sounds of students going from class to class, but there’s still plenty of life left in the old school building, thanks to the Cardinal Community Foundation.
The foundation, formed in the wake of Prairie Hills USD 113’s February 2023 decision to close the school, has worked to secure more than $125,000 in grants to revitalize the school as “a broader community revitalization strategy” for the Wetmore and Goff communities, according to foundation interim director Analyssa Noe, a 2002 graduate of Wetmore High School.
One of those grants is a $15,334.01 award from the Kansas Department of Commerce’s Attraction Development Grant program, which focuses on boosting tourism throughout the state. That grant will be used to facilitate the opening of an “Eclectic Stay” lodging option that utilizes a part of the old school in supporting the growing hunting and agritourism markets in this area, Noe said.
The Attraction Development Grant, she added, is one of six received by the foundation this year, to be utilized in turning the former school building back into an asset for the community and the region.
“The overnight lodging option will be a two-to-three-bedroom unit, but it will only take up a small portion of the overall facility,” Noe said. “The majority of the school building is reserved for a daycare for ages 0-5, a new Christian school that is opening next year for kindergarten through eighth grade and other community use spaces such as the gym, community stage and theater, event space, commercial kitchen and ‘Side Gig Studio’ for small businesses and entrepreneurs.”
The purpose of the “Eclectic Stay” tourism project is to drive economic growth in northeastern Kansas by facilitating the establishment of new, interesting and “eclectic” lodging options that support hunting and agritourism, providing a “uniquely Kansas” lodging option that is unique, historically rich and contextually interesting, it was reported.
The project is expected to pay for itself in sales tax generation in its first 12 months of operation and alleviate a demand for lodging for hunters who have limited overnight-stay options in the area. The foundation reported that the Attraction Development Grant is expected to cover about $15,000 of the project’s estimated cost of $37,000.
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