President Kathy Ward called the meeting to order in the Moran Community Center at 7:05 showing also present: Larry Manes, Nelda Cuppy, Jerry Ward, Ann Houk, Brenda Armstrong, Connie McWhirter, and Ken McWhirter.

Work has begun along the alley behind the old theater building site for the construction of a town storm shelter.

To this point, numbers signed up for the summer swim bus are small. There seems to be more interest in Savonburg than anywhere else. The forms will be sent out again seeking more respondents. We will need more volunteers this year to ride as chaperons.

An attempt will be made again this year to maintain a farmers’ market. Hopefully better weather will bring out participants. Once again it will be at the Back Forty on Saturday mornings.

The plant swap will be held at the Back Forty from 8:00 till 11:00 on April 28th this year. If anyone is interested, it will be accompanied by a bake sale as last year.

The Community Garage Sale will be held on May 5th this year. Set up and donation acceptance will be from 1:00 to 5:00 on Friday afternoon (May 4th) and the sale will be from 7:00 am to 1:00 pm with clean up to follow.

Plans for a local “Home Business Day” are still in the works, but the best time would seem to be fall. Planning will begin in earnest at the August meeting.

The organization has been contacted by the food pantry in Humboldt concerning the possibility of having distributions in Moran. The food is supplied by Wal-Mart from stocks nearing expiration. No details were available, but the distributions would take place once a month. The group will seek more detailed information on what our role and responsibilities would be. It was suggested that we might be able to partner with the American Legion since the “old bar” might have a serviceable, commercial capacity refrigerator still in place. We will try to have the a representative from the Humboldt program talk to us at future meeting to get more details.

The group needs a “signature project” to garner more interest and participation. The swimming program is a start, but has a limited audience (children). Members will try to envision a more all encompassing program for future development.

The Prairie Rose school building has been offered to us as a relocation project. It would cost about $15K to move it to town. The vacant lot across from the market has been offered to us for a location. There are several questions that must be answered in regard to this project. How would the building be used? Who would take care of maintenance and utilities costs? What about restroom facilities (the building has none). At this point, there are more questions than answers.

The “tree painting project” was again discussed. It would require a lot of labor. Is anyone willing to do it? Larry and Nelda did the utility poles along Cedar from 2nd Street to Church Street last fall, but poles are much easier than trees. Discussion will continue.

There being no other business to come before the meeting, it was adjourned at 8:25. The next meeting will be April 11 at 7:00 pm in the Moran Community Center.