OYMC Working Toward Building Community Center

By Natalie Bruzon
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November is a busy month for Orchard’s Young Men’s Club. There’s the Ugly Sweater Party, the Big Buck Contest with a calcutta. 

And now, the demolition of the Udder Place. 

According to OYMC’s treasurer Nate Schwager, the club has been talking about buying and demolishing Udder Place for more than a year. 

“It’s been something that’s been in the works for probably a good year and a half,” said Schwager. “It’s something a lot of people in town wanted to see get cleaned up. Now that we finally got an organization put together, we have the capabilities to do it.”

For months, the club has been working with attorney Joe McNally to be recognized as a non-profit organization. On September 23, they were officially approved. 

Now, what started out as a group of men looking for ways to give back to Orchard is an official organization with a board of directors. At their first official meeting, the club elected their directors, with the president being Tate Heiss. 

“We had our first meeting as an organization back on October 11,” Schwager said. “We had our first meeting to kind of get everything set up and elect our officers and directors.”

As a nonprofit organization, the club can now also take charitable contributions, which will be an important part of achieving their goals in the community. 

“Our vision was to clean up the town a little bit,” explained Schwager. “Obviously we’re not going to jump on everything, but anything we can do to improve mainstreet we’ll step up and try to take it on.

Ideally, the club would like to build a community center on the property, but Schwager said it all depends on community support.

“We need to know that there’s a need for it,” Schwager said. “That people are going to use it and run it. Second, we’re going to need money to fund it, so we’ll need financial support as well.”

According to Schwager, previous residents have shown support for a community center, even saying they’d contribute financially to the project. 

Schwager said the club’s hopes for a new community center would be a larger space for celebrations. 

“We would be bigger, hopefully it could have some wedding dances, stuff like that. (Also), vendor shows. I know the fellowship halls both have that but I think they run out of space as well. It just seems like we’re so limited in town with space right now.”

However, Schwager said the club will also be willing to sell the property to businesses looking to come to town. 

“If somebody wants to come into town and put a new business building there, we’re going to let them,” said Schwager. 

The future of the property is dependent on whether the demolition permit is approved and what the community asks for. Nevertheless, OYMC has made it clear that they plan to be a part of Orchard or a long time, and that their only mission is to help the village grow.