The vision of the Ely Youth Recreational Facility began with the end of the Lincoln Rink. The local outdoor hockey/skating rink was on property owned by the Ely Bloomenson Hospital. The hospital wanted to build an Assistant Living Complex, so the Lincoln Rink came down, but all of its memories and history remain (I learned how to backwards skate at the Lincoln Rink when I played on the Popsicle hockey team as a five year old). The city of Ely realized the community needed not only a replacement outdoor rink, but a center for recreation so new memories and history could evolve.

In 2003 the city received a Community Development Block Grant to start this process. After a lengthy discussion, more like a debacle, between city representatives and citizens over a location, the place was finally chosen. The Ely Parks and Recreation Board planned to build the rink on Miners Drive just past the Revenue Building and along the Trezonia Trail, and move the Lincoln Rink warming building down to the new site. But in 2005 Iron Range Youth in Action students became involved, and the project took a major turn for the better! Instead of moving the little run down warming shack, a plan to build a recreational facility was born.

In the spring of 2007 some Ely students, along with Ely City Representatives, and an IRYA computer genius, Scott Meinzer, went to St. Paul to lobby at the capital. We met with State Representatives Tom Rukavina, Tony Sertich, David Dill, and State Senators Tom Bakk and David Tomassoni and showed a virtual tour of the future Ely Rec Center in a computer generated 3D program. After several meetings and some grant paperwork IRYA received $150,000 from the IRR to work on several Youth Recreation Facilities across the Iron Range! In the fall of 2007 after getting this funding, we at last broke ground.

The first day of construction we stood on a plot of cleared land and staked out where a building would someday stand, and the long process of construction began. From this start, construction of every step of the building has been put together by volunteered hands. After the foundation, the walls rose up in the spring, and then the roof, the siding, and then the sheetrock. The summer produced a building that had started to take shape. In the 2008-2009 school year the Ely High School shop class used their time to construct the Rec Center and learn through the experience. This past summer volunteers cut the to-do list to an even smaller length. This fall we prepared the building for the ceiling and floor to be put in. The Rec Center finally opened on December 19th and today is open for use!

Hard work and perseverance through a long process has finally paid off, a building stands ready to hold all the memories the Lincoln Rink had and more. To me this process has been unforgettable and incredible. Yes all the hours count as volunteer hours, but what has made it an amazing experience is that the other volunteers and I stood on the dirt below the building, we measured the perimeter of the building before it was there, we nailed two by fours together for hours to create a wall, and now a building stands there in the exact same spot; a heated building with plumbing, a working building! This winter I can go up to the rink, on any day, and there will be the same little kids I saw last winter skating around with giant smiles on their faces, and that is what makes it all worth it.