BonnerSprings.com

With guitar and a hammered dulcimer playing in the background, the Hollis Renewal Center thanked its many contributors with a wine-tasting Sunday afternoon.

The event was organized as a way to thank those people who have donated to the center’s capital campaign, which will fund a new overnight-stay facility and campus restrooms on the center’s grounds.

“We were just looking for a nice way to thank our donors,” said Dave Mareske, director of Hollis.

The center, which is located in a secluded wooded area and offers retreat space for people looking for solitude and time to reflect, is in its second year of a two-year campaign to raise $170,000 for the new buildings, as well as an endowment fund to maintain those buildings. So far the center has raised about $100,000 using volunteer labor.

“All of our work is being done by volunteers and so even though the money has come in fairly well, we are still sort of behind as far as my own idea of where we would be with construction at this point,” Mareske said.

The campaign may have to turn into a three-year project, Mareske said, but that was expected from the beginning. Still, he said he was proud of what the center has been able to accomplish with its limited resources.

The new Meadow Cottage, which has nearly completed the construction phase, will be a facility where small groups or families can set up day retreats or overnight visits. The campus restrooms will replace the current outhouses to give the center a more “hospitable feel,” he said, for various events.

The Hollis Center is owned by 28 congregations — mostly of Lutheran denomination — throughout the Kansas City area. The center came to its current property in Bonner Springs in 1888 with the goal, Mareske said, of providing people with “a quiet, renewing space to revive their mission, look at themselves and go back into the world renewed.”

While there is always a religious undertone, many groups are welcome, including companies, he said.

When Mareske became the center’s director eight years ago, he said there were larger-scale plans of buildings to add to the grounds. But what he found was that the center needed to take baby steps and improve the facilities that existed before tackling bigger projects.

Improvements since then have included new insulation in the lodge building, along with a new roof. Lighting and windows were updated and a new water system replaced the old one that leaked. In 1999, the hideaway was built, which gave the center a facility for overnight guests.

Eventually, projects such as the Meadow Cottage and the campus restrooms became possible, setting the stage for the center’s current capital campaign. The new projects, Mareske said, have given the center just the right amount of growth.

“This is just another way to improve the property without necessarily getting bigger,” he said. “I think there’s a sense in our community that we don’t want to have the large scale retreat center. We want to stay small and we want to be very cognizant of our impact on the environment.”

Keeping that in mind, the center has constructed the Meadow Cottage using Styrofoam blocks in which cement is poured inside for the walls. Mareske said this would allow the building to be “very energy-efficient.”

The center’s goal of maintaining a low impact on the environment is twofold, he said. Because the location is situated among trees and wilderness, the center has a close relationship with nature. But like many nonprofit organizations, the other factor comes from looking for ways to save energy dollars.

“I always say ‘We’re living our dream of being a nonprofit,’” Mareske said. “We’re always struggling for funds but we always make use of the money that comes in, in the best possible way.”

In the future, Mareske said there have been talks of building “hermitages” or small overnight cabins for single people or couples. And even further in the future, plans have been drawn up for a youth retreat center and a chapel, but Mareske said it would take someone coming in and donating a lot of money for those to happen anytime soon.

For Debra Box, president of the Hollis board, the fundraising efforts of the center have been well worth it. She said that many times the other facilities on the property are all booked up that the new Meadow Cottage will give patrons another option.

“It fits into our core mission,” she said of the new projects. “For us, retreat facilities are how we deliver our mission to the community. We don’t provide a lot of programs for most people that come out here but we have some resources available, so for us to provide the space is certainly ‘mission delivered.’”

Box said other events such as an arts festival, a golf outing and an Octoberfest in the fall also raise money to better the facilities. She said people are willing to get involved and help raise money because the center offers people something different.

“It’s such a great little hideaway right here,” she said, “and with all of the development in the area it’s nice to have a space that anybody can use.”

Valorie Bratcher, with Abiding Peace Lutheran Church in northern Kansas City, Mo., said she attended Sunday’s wine tasting because her congregation has been a supporter of Hollis for years. She said her church has played host to many council and congregation retreats at the center.

She said she was excited about the improvements being made to the facilities, including the construction of the Meadow Cottage and restrooms. In the future, she said her church plans to take advantage of those new amenities for various events.

“We can have council retreats or just reflective time,” she said. “It’s a place where we can do Bible study and commune with nature because it’s right at your fingertips here.”

Post a comment

BonnerSprings.com doesn't necessarily condone the comments here, nor does it review every post.
Read our full policy. Also, read about banned accounts and harassing comments.

Requires free BonnerSprings.com registration.