When I ask my fellow Rotarians and other friends how they’re doing, they often respond with “Livin’ the dream” or something fun like that. It’s a wonderful phrase that sums up a common attitude around these parts; we live in a very special slice of paradise.
Thinking about it, most of us are “livin’ the dream.” Sometime in the past, someone you may have known—or not—had a dream to create a reality that you now enjoy and maybe even take for granted.
Here’s a dream like that: it’s a dreary day in the early 1990’s. Three workers at Rich’s Pie Factory in Saugatuck are outside on a cigarette break. Dressed in white from head to toe, the trio stub out their smokes and return to the plant only to learn that it’s closing for good. They are sent home that evening with pink slips and final paychecks. The plant languishes to become a vacant depressing eyesore in the heart of town for nearly a decade.
Could anyone have dreamed that 25 years later, concerts, professional theater, film, classes, and exhibitions would pack the place with happy patrons enjoying all that the arts have to offer? A group of seven visionary artists dreamed of a massive arts complex on the site of the dilapidated old factory. Yet, only through many trials and travails did the scope of the project get winnowed down enough to be affordable. Practical people came in. Tough negotiations ensued. Deals and donations and Directors arrived at just the right times to get the project done.
It’s difficult to imagine Saugatuck without its Arts Center, isn’t it? We live in that dream.
Speaking of Directors, the SCA’s Kristin Armstrong is a Rotarian and a friend. She and her Board are busy dreaming up amazing new ways for us to live into the arts and the arts to live into us. Of course, Kristin and her teams are scheduling all the great events we’ve come to expect. But did you know that SCA is also bringing arts programs into our schools for kids who might otherwise never experience them?
We Rotarians see some of our neighbors living in bad dreams right now; even nightmares. Poverty. Addiction. Danger at home. Broken families—maybe—or intact ones whose moms and dads must work constantly but can’t make enough to break out of poverty and give their kids a better life. You know—the better kind of life where kids can dream dreams and make them come true.
Rotarians dream that soon every Saugatuck-Douglas student regardless of income will have a safe and stimulating place to go after school and over the summer. To get homework projects completed with caring adults guiding them; explore their artistic talents; play and compete and live healthy lives, aided by mentors who lift their sights to new career horizons they never thought possible.
After that, onward to other nearby schools in need.
Pipedream? Hardly. We’re a local network harnessing the power and resources of Rotary International (RI) to dream big dreams. Partnering with the Holland Boys and Girls Clubs and the Saugatuck Public Schools, next year we’ll introduce after-school and summer programming proven to change children’s lives. We’ve raised $60,000 and will have $80,000 secured soon. Then we’ll request an RI Global Grant that would triple that amount. Combining RI and local friends, we intend to join those who came before us to dream, dare, and do.
What dreams are you cooking up these days? Care to help us create sweeter dreams? I’m at theloyaltycoach@gmail.com.
–Jim Sullivan, Rotary Club President
