Not-for-profits look for new homes

By Lois Mittino Gray

Several non-profit agencies are looking for a new home base after they learned they must leave the premises they now lease at the former Hedges Central Elementary School in Mount Vernon. Tenants learned they need to be out by the end of February, February 28. “We will not extend any leases past that date,” said Mount Vernon Schools Chief Financial Officer Bo Harris. “We may be able to play with that a little, but that is the date we set for no extensions.”

Hedges Central Elementary School, located at 716 Locust Street, served generations of local families before closing its doors as a school in 2010. It became a community center for non-profit agencies with nominal rental fees charged. Residents could visit many of them all in one ‘central’ location.

Not everyone there will have to move out. The old school gym is used by many residents for exercise, birthday parties, and family fun and will continue in that capacity. It is run by the Mount Vernon Parks and Recreation Department, and they will not be required to vacate. Neither will the Wolfgang Orchestra with their instruments all set up.

Why the evictions? The School District is wanting to renovate the building as one of the projects funded from the $15 million dollar bond sale the building corporation plans to do before the end of the year. They will vacate the present non-handicap accessible Administration Building on 1000 West Fourth Street and move all their offices into newly remodeled Hedges Central. The Information and Technology Office, the Special Education Services, and the District Health Clinic are already there and established on site.

“We’ll start the renovation as soon as possible. After the bonds are sold, Empire will put out public bids on the work to be done. We don’t know a timeline as yet. The best-case scenario is work completed by the end of 2027,” Harris speculated.

Local resident Paula Rudibaugh asked Harris how many people were going to move out of the present Admin building into Hedges. He was unsure of the exact figure but estimated perhaps as many as twelve. “We are not completely done with planning,” he told her.

Officials are meeting with lessees who have to move to help brainstorm possible locations to go to in the area. “We had a meeting in August and have another one on September 30,” stated School Superintendent Stephanie Stewart. She is trying to deal with claims from lessees that they didn’t get enough notice and have little time to find another option.

Lessees having to move range from the Posey County Historical Society with its 3,500 feet of museum space spilling into three rooms of the school to the Bellefontaine Cemetery Board that needs only a room to meet once a month and store some records. All of them are in quandary as to where to go.

Becky Higgins, Posey County Historical Society President, said they are meeting and still working on an alternative site. “We have so many artifacts to display in our museum and we want to display what we have. We are open to suggestions. Unless we find something, it will all need to go into climate-controlled storage. That will cost money.”

“We appreciate the school as they were great landlords, but where do we go around here? We want our items to be on display, not just in a closet,” she said. Posey County Historian Stan Campbell agreed with a sad nod of his head. “It is all going to have to be stored away somewhere, but where?”

It was suggested that the vacated Mews in New Harmony with its seven rooms in a tourist town might be a good site for a museum. A call to Red Geranium Enterprises real estate agent in Texas quashed that thought when she said RGE would like to use it for storage with its present plans.

Bellefontaine Cemetery Manager Deb Isham said her group has called a realtor looking for a single room to rent for her record storage and to have a meeting space once a month. “Right now we don’t know what we are going to do. We received a letter on August 14 about vacating. We don’t need a lot of room. I work from my house mainly, but I did need to go look for a record in the files recently,” she said. “We have a trailer to store things in the back of the cemetery.”

The River Bend Food Pantry is working on the moving situation, too, according to Cheryl Fetcher, Operations Director. Some other agencies looking for shelter include Willow Tree, CAPE/Head Start, and Family Matters. Andrea Biggerstaff, Family Matters Director, said one of the great things about Hedges Central was having so many agencies in close proximity to each other. “Many of our patrons use several of the agencies and it was nice to be able to walk them from one room to the other to get services all at one time.”

Anyone having room for an agency or suggestions of places to look at for them are encouraged to get a hold of school officials or the agencies themselves. Their numbers are on a sign on the door of Hedges Central School.