A new organization is a few steps closer to becoming a community center that offers diverse services to the residents of Omaha. Yates Illuminates red brick building at 3260 Davenport Street, are moving into the space and starting to provide services that are especially helpful for new Americans but open to all.
“It’s not only for immigrants and refugees, it’s for the whole community,” said Marie Hélène André, the executive director of Yates Illuminates, as she stood outside the beloved building on Tuesday.
Yates Illuminates brings fourteen nonprofits together under the same roof to connect people in Omaha with support for jobs, education and the arts. Each nonprofit pays rent to Yates Illuminates on a sliding scale, depending on the amount of space and time they’re open each week.
Although plastic covers the windows as renovations continue, inside Yates Illuminates the first tenants have moved into the old school. Depending on the day you’ll find GED and English as a Second Language classes in session through Metropolitan Community College, the Great Plains Theatre Commons rehearsing for an upcoming performance or youth of the Bluebird Cultural Initiative drumming. On the front lawn, a converted storage unit has become MCC’s “Freight Farm,” a vertical crop-growing system that can produce more than two acres of food in a year, according to the website.
André hopes Yates Illuminates becomes not only a space for the community, but a place for true collaboration between local organizations.
“Because it’s a new concept, we have to learn to work together and live together,” André said.
For decades, the building that’s now home for Yates Illuminates has been a fixture for education and new Americans in Omaha’s Gifford Park neighborhood. It began as Yates Elementary School and became home to the Omaha Public Schools district’s English as a second language programs for immigrants and refugees.
In 2019, the OPS district announced its plan to move the program and sell the building to an out of state developer. Worried this would displace people from critical language services, community members with the Gifford Park Neighborhood Association organized a grassroots Save Yates campaign to preserve the building and remain a space for new Americans. In November of 2020, the OPS Board of Education chose the community’s bid over the out of state developer’s, and Yates Illuminates was born.
In April 2022, Yates Illuminates was awarded $1 million in ARPA funding to renovate the project site to provide social and mental health services geared towards the immigrant and refugee communities. The goal throughout the renovation has been to preserve as much of the building’s history as possible, André said. The classroom and hallway walls have been painted, the original windows, wood floors and doors are being renovated.
All 14 tenants will have settled into the building by the start of April, André said. She said a grand opening will take place later in the summer. Ultimately, Yates Illuminates will be a place for people to gather and connect, just as neighbors and former students have fought for it to be, André said.
“That’s how you make a community better — tell me your story and I’ll tell you mine,” André said.
Here are the organizations you’ll find at Yates Illuminates:
- Bluebird Cultural Initiative
- D2 Center
- DO Space
- Families in Action
- Gifford Park Neighborhood Association
- Great Plains Theater Commons
- Intercultural Senior Center
- International Council for Refugees and Immigrants
- Lending Link
- Metropolitan Community College
- Midlands African Chamber, Inc.
- Refugee Women Rising
- Restoring Dignity
- Youth For Greater Good
For more information on how to get involved with Yates Illuminates, go to www.yatesilluminates.org/contact or visit 3260 Davenport Street.
Contact the writer at bridget@el-perico.com