A Letter to Our Community: Celebrating Connection in Ely
Updated: Sep 11
The Heart of Ely
One of the things I've always admired about Ely is the way people show up for one another. Growing up on the 400 block of Harvey Street, I learned the value of community early on. If we ran out of a cup of sugar, we knew exactly whose door to knock on. Looking back, I can't recall if we always remembered to return it. What stands out is that asking for help never felt uncomfortable. That's simply what neighbors do. You trust that someone will answer the door, and someday you might be the one answering theirs.
These moments rarely become stories. They are too ordinary for that. Someone stays after an event to stack chairs. A business quietly sponsors a youth production because they believe children deserve that opportunity. A neighbor shovels a driveway before heading to work. On their own, these actions may seem insignificant, but together they weave the fabric that keeps a community united. Most of us don’t notice them until something reminds us they’re there.
Reflecting on Difficult Times
I've been thinking about this a lot lately, especially after a challenging summer. Every community eventually faces a season that demands more than anyone expected. What stayed with me wasn't just the uncertainty; it was how quickly people began finding ways to care for one another. The smoke made daily life harder, but it also illuminated the efforts of those carrying different parts of our community. This work wasn’t new; it had been happening all along. I was simply paying closer attention.
This realization has lingered with me, altering my perspective on the Northern Lakes Arts Association. This year, we celebrated forty years as an organization. Anniversaries naturally invite reflection, and we’ve spent ample time remembering productions, artists, volunteers, and the thousands of people who have shaped us. However, I found myself thinking less about our history and more about what forty years asks of us now.
An organization that has been part of a community for four decades carries a different kind of responsibility than one just starting. People begin to assume we will still be here next year and the year after that. This is an extraordinary vote of confidence, but it also shifts the question. Instead of asking what we want to become, I’ve found myself asking what our community should expect from us.
Our Role in the Community
As an arts organization, our tools differ from those of many neighbors. We don’t fight wildfires or coordinate emergency responses. We don’t operate shelters or write public policy. What we have are rehearsal rooms, classrooms, galleries, performances, artists, volunteers, and spaces where people can gather. Most days, these things feel ordinary. This summer reminded me that they are anything but.
During Jesus Christ Superstar, I found myself watching the audience as much as the stage. Outside, uncertainty loomed, and many were deciding daily whether it made sense to leave home. Inside, something else was happening. For ninety minutes, people laughed, listened, cried, and sat together. When the performance ended, many didn’t rush out the door. They lingered in the lobby, talking with friends or simply enjoying the moment before heading back outside.
I’ve thought about those evenings more than I expected. I don’t think what people needed that week was simply a musical. They needed a place to gather. They needed somewhere with clean air, where conversations weren’t dominated by the latest news updates, and where they could momentarily set down their burdens. Art didn’t solve the uncertainty outside the theater, but it offered something different: a sanctuary of togetherness.
Leadership and Responsibility
Behind the scenes, I aimed to do what I imagine many leaders across Ely were trying to do. I wanted our cast and volunteers to feel steady, even when I wasn’t entirely sure what the next day would bring. We made decisions one at a time, adjusting as circumstances changed, repeatedly asking ourselves:
What does our community need from us right now?
Sometimes the answer was clear. Opening the performances through Pay What You Can felt right. Encouraging audiences to support local restaurants before coming to the theater felt right. Offering our building as a gathering space felt right. None of these decisions felt particularly innovative at the time; they simply aligned with the organization we aspire to be.
A few days later, someone thanked me for making those performances Pay What You Can. Before leaving, they paused and asked, "If organizations like yours couldn’t make that decision, who could?" I didn’t answer immediately because I wasn’t sure if the question was truly about Northern Lakes Arts Association. The more I reflect on it, the more I believe it was a question about responsibility.
Healthy communities don’t expect every institution to do the same work. They ask each institution to understand its role well enough to contribute generously. Schools teach. Libraries preserve knowledge. Churches nurture spiritual lives. Businesses create opportunities. Nonprofits meet needs in various ways. None of us carries the entire community, but together we can achieve more than any one of us could alone.
I’ve come to believe that this is the essence of leadership. It’s not about trying to become everything. It’s about understanding what you’ve been entrusted with and offering it as faithfully as you can.
Our Commitment to the Arts
For Northern Lakes Arts Association, this means continuing to gather people, creating access to the arts, investing in local artists and partnerships, adapting as our community evolves, and showing up year after year. In the coming weeks, we will share our commitments as five public promises. I hope people will read them, challenge us to live up to them, and hold us accountable long after this campaign concludes.
These promises also explain why we’re inviting people to invest in this work through a matching gift campaign. A philanthropic partner has generously offered to match every gift, dollar for dollar, up to $15,000. More than just helping us meet a goal, these gifts help build the kind of organization that can keep asking, "What does our community need from us?" regardless of what tomorrow holds.
I don’t know what the next few years will bring for Ely. None of us does. What I do know is that communities are shaped by ordinary decisions made repeatedly. A neighbor answers the door. Someone stays to stack chairs. A business sponsors a youth production. An audience gathers on a smoky July evening because being together matters.
Those moments rarely make the news. Over time, they become the story of a place.
I hope Northern Lakes Arts Association continues to be one small part of that story. If you believe every community deserves organizations people can count on, I’d be honored to have you help us continue writing it.
Much gratitude to you and to all of our community,
Ian Francis Lah
Executive Artistic Director
NLAA
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