November 10, 2004
Farm reaps election benefits
Rolling Centuries Farm volunteers celebrate passing of local open space proposals
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
Determined to rescue the former Traverse City State Hospital barns and surrounding acreage from development, Thursday evening the three founders of Rolling Centuries Farm turned around and thanked the many dedicated volunteers who helped make their vision a reality.
Nearly 40 people gathered at Building 50 for the party, most receiving certificates of appreciation for their myriad efforts. Every contribution mattered during nearly three years of public events, which ranged from harvest parties and snow shoeing to barn dances and hosting the farmer's market during the National Cherry Festival.
Volunteers provided horses and mules for wagon rides, donated printing to publicize the events and the farm, brought ice cream, hot chocolate and hot dogs or donated books to sell as a fund-raiser. Other volunteers mowed, plowed, ran a silent auction, produced a historical video or helped with gardening.
"If not for all of you and about four times as many people who are here, we would not have Rolling Centuries Farm on the map," said Emmy Lou Cholak, one of the farm's founders. "Some of you have dedicated so much time and effort to Rolling Centuries Farm, you've gone head over heels on it."
The organizers and self-described 'troika' - Dan Tholen, Cholak and Mike Groleau - had also planned the celebration for just after an important election. For them, November 2 was the day that voters in Garfield Township and the city would determine the future of Rolling Centuries Farm.
To their joy, voters overwhelmingly approved two open space proposals, despite a general anti-millage sentiment in the region.
One proposal authorized money for a joint city-township recreational authority to purchase the historic barns and 54.7 acres surrounding them. The second proposal was an operational millage that provides funds to maintain the property for 20 years. These two proposals also approved purchase and maintenance of the 117-acre Oleson Field near Hickory Hills Ski Area and the former Smith Barney office building on Grandview Parkway.
"We figured we'd either be able to celebrate or cry in our beer," said Tholen, one of the earliest visionaries of saving the acreage from development.
Tholen noted that the next step is to enroll the property's new owner that the Rolling Centuries Farm vision for the property is workable and what the community wants.
"We convinced the previous owner [the Grand Traverse Commons Redevelopment Corporation] that Rolling Centuries was the communities wishes," Tholen noted. "Now we're going to convince the new owner; what we want to do is make it easy for the Recreational Authority to say, 'Yes.'"
Living nearby, Tholen has a deep affinity for the former state hospital land, what he calls 'Traverse City's Central Park.' As a member of the Grand Traverse Commons Board, which was given 480 acres in 1993 by the state to determine it's disposal, Tholen poured his heart and soul into preserving part of it.
By 2001, he invited the community and schools to help create a vision of what to do with this piece. Although he received little response, two schools weighed in. Students at one, the Montessori Children's House and Elementary School, spawned the idea of a working farm centered on the soaring barns.
The pieces began falling into place but Tholen was reaching burnout, Cholak recalled.
"He put his hand on my shoulder and said to me, 'If somebody doesn't help me, it's going down the drain," she said.
In stepped Cholak, a tornado of energy, enthusiasm and commitment who soon had Rolling Centuries Farm organized. For the next three years, Cholak and volunteers hosted numerous events at the property, demonstrating it's natural affinity with a range of recreational, community and educational activities.
"It's been a long three years," Cholak reflected at the celebratory party. "We've gone from five volunteers and me doing practically everything to where I was able to invite 100 people here today and that's not everybody."