A New Arts and Crafts Indoor Home.
Olivia is a small city in Minnesota, where a big community project is soon to start, but this time it is in the interest of the kids. The new CORNLAND USA will be located on the lower floor of the new community center (ex-National Guard Armory), where children will be able to frolic, study, and develop (particularly during the cold winter months) in the warm, cozy indoor environment. What may have started as a simple idea, to provide kids with a place to play when the weather is too bad, has grown to something much more substantial: a permanent family activity, sensory play, and early-childhood development place.
- A New Arts and Crafts Indoor Home.
- More Than Just Fun: STEM and Sensory Experience.
- A Community Gift: Why CORNLAND USA is Important to Olivia.
- Family Information: Visits and Provisional Visitations.
- Ode to the Heritage of Olivia CORNLAND, USA in Name and Spirit.
- How This Would Impact the Future of Olivia.
More Than Just Fun: STEM and Sensory Experience.
CORNLAND USA is not just any playground. The center, created as a combination of STEM education and a highly experience-driven play, houses miniature, handcrafted playhouses designed to resemble the local landmarks (such as a fire hall, a bank, a school bus, and, naturally, a barn), created by specialized craft builders and designed to encourage imaginative play. There will be various interactive stations inside including a toy plane, slides, a flight lab, which can be simulated flying fun powered with the help of a big fan, magnetic building toys, a rolling-ball game, which is shaped like a life-size board game, a 4-H-style vegetable garden, which allows kids to grow produce, and a comfortable reading nook provided with rocking chairs to a grown-up. It is a place to laugh, be curious, and learn at the same time, and it is a place where children are able to explore, learn, and just be kids, regardless of what is going on outside.
A Community Gift: Why CORNLAND USA is Important to Olivia.
To the people who organized it, particularly those of the Pages of Our Communities Foundation, CORNLAND USA is not a play center, but a gift to the city. There exists a lack of indoor recreation opportunities for young children in most of the small towns, such as Olivia. Winters can be long, roads can be icy, and families cannot find a safe and warm place to blow off the energy of their children. The foundation wants to fill that empty space by transforming the former armory into a special kid-friendly area. In addition to the fun, the center provides parents with an opportunity to network, socialize, and empower one another as their children have fun, thus enhancing the community. It is an indication that big ideas are needed even in small towns.
Family Information: Visits and Provisional Visitations.
At the time of the opening of CORNLAND USA, the families will have two methods of coming there: a yearly membership will be available, as well as a per-visit pass, should the family wish to have a more open schedule. Children will have to be in the company of adults, which will ensure their safety and a family-friendly environment. It is also intended that the center could then be rented by childcare centers or other family gatherings, and this makes it a potential and very diverse community resource. At a very affordable price – and, perhaps, more crucially enough, in a cozy, lively atmosphere, local families can discover their new favorite winter resort here.
Ode to the Heritage of Olivia CORNLAND, USA in Name and Spirit.
They are not simply calling the center CORNLAND USA. It is an allusion to the fact that Olivia has strong agricultural roots and a proud history as a seed-corn center – the so-called Corn Capital of the World. The name was used long ago in a great event celebrating the agricultural background of the area; now its use is reconsidered in the present times as a rebirth of a link between the past and the present, the field and the central community area, the cornfields and the playhouses. The new center is a continuation of that tradition in a new, kid-friendly version in a town where the view of a giant corn monument is used to identify the town.
How This Would Impact the Future of Olivia.
As it opens, CORNLAND USA can be more than just a venue where kids can play; it might also become a family meeting place, a place to retreat to in times of cold winters, and a place of communal involvement. It addresses the strength of the small-town values: that you do not need big cities to take care of the children, to form relationships, and to sustain the heritage. To the citizens of Olivia, both young and old, it promises an easy thing: community, coziness, and home. And to the children, it is something invaluable, a place to fantasize, to educate, to laugh, to develop.
