OMRO (NBC 26) — After welcoming about 5,400 visitors in a town of roughly 3,500 people last year, the Omro Area Community Center was forced to shut down at the end of 2022, when the city of Omro ended its longstanding $1 per year lease.
Now, the center is back up and running under a temporary arrangement at Bridge of Faith Baptist church, but patrons and management say all is not yet well with the center.
Charlene Messenger is a longtime patron of the center and says that the shutdown seriously hurt an already struggling community.
“If you look down the street, we used to have people all over, businesses, all kinds of things happening," she said."[now] We’re becoming a ghost town, and that’s sad.”
Lynn Kromm serves as the Omro Area Community Center's acting director and says the new space has allowed the center to restart some of its programming, such as its "strong bodies" fitness class, but is not sufficient for larger gatherings.
“There’s not a big enough space where, say if there’s a wedding that wanted a small reception area, there’s nothing available," Kromm said. "We've lost all of that basically by moving out of [our former] building."
Kromm explains that the center is actively looking to find a permanent home and the community has been generous with fundraising to help acquire a larger space, but the center's leadership has been unable to find the right building in town.
Kay Senderhauf regularly attends classes at the Omro Area Community Center and said she hopes the center can eventually find a new location, as she considers it a key piece of Omro's identity.
“If we take our events somewhere else it loses a lot," Senderhauf said. "A lot of us like Omro and we want to stay here so I think that’s why we need a community center. Every town deserves that.”
