Prairie Skyline Foundation

Here it is, the condensed 2 page version of the "Young at HArt Center."  I know people are busier today than ever, so here is your shortcut to something new and exciting for Crookston, MN! Young at HArt center exec summary.doc View more documents from Prairie Skyline Foundation, Inc. web counter

Care and Share got the former cathedral church when they purchased the former rectory and adjacent land. The plans were to expand the Care and Share Homeless Shelter and they did that. They never wanted the former Cathedral, but it was part of the package. Minnesota Housing Finance Agency funded part of the project, said Jan Delage. Sister Justina was in charge of the Care and Share Board at that time. People constantly approached Care and Share about the cathedral. People were very interested in its future. Of course, the non-profit homeless shelter did not have funding to tear it down (estimated at that time $35,000) nor did they have a use for the building. The board was concerned about preserving the stained glass. There were problems with the high school kids smoking and lounging behind the church. Stones were thrown and some of the storm window glass was broken. In an effort to preserve the glass, Care and Share gave the ventilator windows with family names on them to ...

Rev. Dan Wolpert has suggested once again that we consider a "planned ruin" similar to the St. Boniface ruin in Winnipeg.  Despite our open grant for a feasibility study for an arts center, I believe this option should be considered carefully.  The difference between St. Boniface and the former Cathedral is that St. Boniface had a fire that destroyed most all of its interior and some of its exterior, whereas the Cathedral doesn't have that reason.  Still there is some sad and wistful beauty in the idea of a planned ruin as opposed to waiting for volunteers, and contributors to come forth on the idea of a Centre for the Arts in NW Minnesota or demolition by the County. Please do comment.

Eyewashes prepared by Brian Carlson, JLG Architects, Grand Forks, ND When the Diocese of Crookston built a new Catholic Cathedral in 1991, the Care and Share Homeless Shelter bought the former rectory, and land to expand their services to the homeless. The empty former Cathedral was included even though Care and Share had no use for it. Not wanting to lose the Tiffany style Stained Glass windows to vandalism, they sold some of them. See the complete story of the stripping of the former Cathedral on prairieskyline.com. In 1996, Jennifer Peterson founded the Skyline Preservation Foundation, Inc., a non-profit, public charity to purchase the three-spired church. The former board researched the history and applied to be on the National Historic Register, which it is today. They fought a long legal case to be free from property taxes as an undeveloped building. They endured loss of leadership, loss of a grant-writer, and struggled to keep the building up with small fundraiser...