Leaders at the Cortez Cultural Center said that feedback in the past few months has helped them find a path to keep the iconic Market Street building without drastically changing its mission, but the nonprofit will need an influx of volunteers and about $90,000 to make it happen.
Cortez Cultural Center board president Lee Bergman says the center seeks to shift its focus from Anazasi history to hone in on local history and Western heritage, an area that he and the board said is relative untapped. The center is building partnerships with the Cortez Historical Preservation Board and the Colorado Historical Society to develop a new direction, as well as getting input from local families with strong generational ties to Cortez and Montezuma County.
The Cultural Center is not abandoning the idea of building outdoor-focused programming using its other physical resource, Hawkins Preserve, as a base.
It was initially pitched that the center could sell the building and find an ecology-based path centered on Hawkins Preserve, an idea that got a chilly response from the public at an Aug. 10 meeting.
Programs including the Birding Festival, Pueblo to Pueblo Run, Wednesday Night Lecture Series and the Indian Dances have been saved from the chopping block, but if members and local residents have requests for programming, more volunteers with specific skill sets that are willing to lead programs pro-bono are desperately needed.
Volunteers have always been the heartbeat of the Cultural Center, but in order to re-energize the nonprofit without burning out its existing volunteer base, more help is crucial.
“We have a lot of talented people in this community,” said board member Randy Bangert.
Although it recently received a $10,000 donation from GST Liquors owner Grant Smith, the Cultural Center also faces a $90,000 shortfall for this year and is embarking on a two-month fundraising campaign to meet the goal.
The board estimates its annual expenses to be $168,000, which includes costs associated with keeping the building open, salaries for its one full-time and one half-time employee, and tighter but active programming.
“We recognize the communities great desire to keep the building alive, but it’s not going to be an easy task,” said Bergman. “What we need are both kinds of people: We need people with the money and passion about what we do to support us, and we need people who may not be working full-time, who can commit their time and volunteer to put some of these programs on.”
On Oct. 20, the board is hosting another public meeting to brief members and interested locals on more specifics about the direction of the Cultural Center, get more feedback and hopefully recruit a more robust volunteer base. After a presentation on the status of the center, the crowd will be then be broken up into volunteer groups based on certain programming areas to brainstorm on paths forward.
“If the community has passion about this building and programming, then we need them to step up to fund and support us through volunteering,” said board member Wendy Carter.
The Cortez Cultural Center’s next public meeting is slated for Oct. 20 at 6 p.m. at 25 N. Market St.