Coon Lake Beach 
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“The members feel like we’re one great
big family,” Kathy Paavola
said. “Everybody who comes out here .... They just love
it.”
Coon Lake Beach and
Senior Center breathes new life
From an article by Elyse Kaner
Staff
writer
Arising from a forest of old growth white pines and an
advertisement that sold lakeshore property for a bonus along with the cost
of a newspaper subscription in 1925, Coon Lake Beach
Community and Senior Center has reinvented itself once again, breathing
new life into a struggling landmark that was nearly lost to a lack of interest.
Never mind that the center’s location is brandished with a
mishmash of addresses: the city of East
Bethel, a Wyoming post office, a St. Paul phone number, and children who
attend the Forest Lake School District.
Members of the center clearly have one goal in mind – to build community.
The original Coon Lake Beach Clubhouse was built in 1925,
where the center now sits. It was the hub of activity for the community. The
Minneapolis Star had just bought Coon Lake Beach from landowner Sen. Bob Swanson.
The paper then turned around and offered a bonus of 20- by 100-foot lots with
the purchase of a six-month subscription. A subscriber could buy no fewer
than two lots and not more than 10 for $67.50 apiece, with $10 down and for
$2.50 a month, according to a March, 1993 Forest Lake Times article. Buyers
jumped at the chance. In the mid 1980s the old clubhouse was torn down to
make way for the present building. The outside picnic shelter on the tree-lined
lake and playground for kids have served the community well.
Up at the crack of dawn every other Sunday, Beachers, fire
up the fixings for the bimonthly
pancake breakfast by 5:30 a.m. About 125 people, tempted by pancakes,
eggs, sausages, bacon and french toast, turn out for the popular get-together.
But that’s only a smidgen of activities offered by the center, which
has burgeoned to about 250 members. There’s coffee times, a monthly
noon lunch, holiday parties, sign language classes, teen dances and an annual
pig roast. In fact, the center’s annual Coon Lake Beach pig roast after
9-11 was so successful that it
ran short of food. “I think they (locals) wanted to be with and meet
people,” said Paavola Community President, who also serves on East Bethel
City Council.
In addition to hosting holiday parties, during Thanksgiving
and Christmas, members deliver food baskets to seniors who can’t get
out. “I would just cry because these people were so thankful that they
were remembered,” Paavola said. “We’re all going to be there
one day.”
The center prides itself on participating in civic duties as
well. Coon Lake Beach volunteers clean litter from Lexington Avenue to
Lincoln Drive to Forest Road. Its Cans for Kids initiative, in which volunteers
collect and recycle aluminum cans, has raised funds for children to attend
summer events, like trips to Valley Fair.
Last fall, the center started a Coon Lake Beach neighborhood
watch, which has resulted in an even closer-knit community. Marlene Collen
had such good childhood memories of Coon Lake Beach – costume contests,
dunking for apples at the Halloween party, fishing for prizes in the fishing-pond
game – that she vowed to become active in the senior center when she
retired. Months after her Dec. 31 retirement from an electronic distribution
company in Minneapolis, Collen is keeping her promise. She spends hours working
on events to keep the center going. I like meeting the people,” she
said. “It’s reconnecting with the community again.” Over
the years, the center has begun to show wear. It needs repairs. Recently,
a new carpet was installed and the walls in the main hall received a fresh
coat of paint. But soon it will need a new roof and siding. And the kitchen
needs to be painted. “We’re chewing at it a little bit at a time,”
Paavola said.
Some will rally for more activities and services
at the center. They hope to provide rides for people who can’t
drive to the grocery store. They would also like to offer a 55 Alive refresher
driving class, help for the disabled and tutoring classes for the children.
So the center, which is partially supported by charitable gambling funds,
will continue to seek new members. It will continue to rent out for special
occasions. And it will continue to hold fund-raisers to enhance a neighborly
feel throughout the community.
“The members feel like we’re one great big family,”
Paavola said. “Everybody who comes out here .... They just love
it.”
For more information call: (651) 982-4628.
