GREENVILLE, Mich. — The Flat River Community Players who preform at the Greenville Area Community Center received a major boost with a $140,000 grant from the Greenville Area Community Foundation.
"It feels like a win for the theater community. It feels like a win for the city. It's just something to be proud of," said Adam Lindemier, president of the Flat River Community Players.
The volunteer-based nonprofit has gone without a permanent storage space for years after a fire took everything they had six years ago.
"We've been alive for 52 years now, and six years ago, you know, losing what is a giant piece of our history with that fire, there was struggles. That's it for a lot of organizations, that would've put them in the ground," Lindemier said.
With the $140,000 grant, the company is able to afford a $200,000 brand new storage space right outside the community center. The remaining $60,000 will come from City Capital Improvement Funds and the Flat River Community Players.
"It's going to give us a lot of stability. It's going to take a lot of worries off our back. It's going to, in all probability, save us a considerable amount of money every month," said Doug Stek, vice president of the community players board.
Stek, who has been involved with the company for over 40 years, says this grant will allow their company to more easily build sets and props.
"The more we can do for production values, the more value our audience gets out of it, and the more value we get out of it, because if our audience is impressed, they'll come back," Stek said.
The Greenville city engineer says the new storage space will not only benefit Flat River.
"They can be building things, and the community center could be using the auditorium space for other things so that's a great thing," said Doug Hinken.
The president of Flat River says this moment has been a long time coming.
"It's making it known that our efforts in the community is appreciated and that we can actually have a space that we're confident in that this is us," Lindemier said.
They plan to start construction on the new storage space in March and hope to be completed by the end of summer.
Auditions for their next musical, "The Musical Comedy Murders of the 1940's," will take place February 2nd, 3rd and 4th at 7 p.m. Performances will be March 20th, 21st and 22nd.
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