Leadership Cape class projects often yield real-world results

On a cool spring day, teenagers can be seen performing skateboard tricks at the only skate park in Cape Girardeau, while dogs kick up dirt at the recently opened Dogtown in Kiwanis Park. As temperatures rise, people will flood to the city's water park, Cape Splash. Children learn and play year-round at the Discovery Playhouse in downtown Cape Girardeau, and locals checking out area events can scan the online activities calender at semoevents.com.

These community projects all began as big ideas, and most of those big ideas were developed by participants in Leadership Cape, an annual program offered by the Cape Girardeau Area Chamber of Commerce.

Leadership Cape is geared toward giving Cape Girardeau leaders and professionals leadership skills, as well as the opportunity to discover what Cape Girardeau has to offer, said Kim Voelker, membership development specialist for the chamber. This is her first year overseeing the program.

"In a workplace, not everyone has the same personality or work style as you do," she said, and focus of the program is the dynamics of working in a team.

Herb Anderson sits with his two-year-old yellow labrador retriever, Beemer, at Dogtown dog park in Kiwanis Park, Wednesday, April 30, 2014. Between Anderson and his wife, Beemer gets to visit the dog park around five times a week. (Laura Simon)

A major component of the Leadership Cape program is completing a group project. After participants are broken up into small groups that represent a variety of personalities, they choose a community betterment project they see a need or want for in the city. They then pitch their project ideas to chamber members and area leaders at the chamber's monthly First Friday Coffee networking event.

The point of the group project is to learn the process of creating and pitching a community project, and the dynamics of working with a group of individuals who have different professional backgrounds and personality types, Voelker said.

Though the group projects are more about the process than the project itself, "the vast majority of teams' projects are projects they would like see implemented," Voelker said.

Over the past few years, there haven't been any projects pitched that are too far-fetched to happen, she said.

One of the more recent Leadership Cape project success stories is the dog park, Dogtown, that opened in November within Kiwanis Park.

Stacy Dohogne Lane, director of public relations for the Cape Girardeau Convention and Visitors Bureau, is a graduate of the Leadership Cape class of 2012. Lane's group pitched an idea for Delaware Dog Park, "a public place for dog owners to take their pets to exercise off leash and also to provide a social environment for dog owners."

Skippy, a seven-month-old rescue dog retrieves his frisbee at Dogtown dog park in Kiwanis Park, Wednesday, April 30, 2014. (Laura Simon)

It was not the first time a dog park project had been pursued by a Leadership Cape group, but it would be the last.

Many of Lane's group members had dogs, so there was a level of personal interest there, she said. The availability of casino funding for such a park also played a large role in the group's decision to pursue the project.

"Knowing that funding was in place just kind of removed a major obstacle in our mind," Lane said.

It just so happened Julia Thompson, director of the Parks and Recreation Department for the city, was in the same Leadership Cape class and was "immediately supportive of the idea," Lane said.

Six months to a year later, the group and Thompson reunited and worked together throughout the planning process, tweaking a few things along the way.

Mike Vaitkevicius works on training his seven-month-old rescue dog, Skippy, at Dogtown dog park in Kiwanis Park, Wednesday, April 30, 2014. (Laura Simon)

The group's chosen location for the dog park was Delaware Park, at Sprigg Street and Lexington Avenue, but Thompson suggested moving it to Kiwanis Park because plumbing and parking already were in place, and major earth movement would not be needed, all of which would save money.

The city approved $25,000 of casino funds to be used for construction of the park, Thompson said, calling the vote "serendipitous."

A local dog park was something some members of the Cape Girardeau community had been after for years, but suffered pushback from residential areas, Lane and Thompson said.

Lane's group was able to bring attention to the idea at the right time, and with the help of Thompson, it brought the project to fruition, Lane said.

Another successful Leadership Cape project is the skateboard park at Missouri Park, 400 N. Fountain St.

Herb Anderson plays ball with his two-year-old yellow labrador retriever, Beemer, at Dogtown dog park in Kiwanis Park, Wednesday, April 30, 2014. Between Anderson and his wife, Beemer gets to visit the dog park around five times a week. (Laura Simon)

The idea for a skateboard park was pitched in 2001 by the group of Matt Hopkins of Technology and Networking Inc./ASC.

At the time, other parks and businesses in the Town Plaza, for example, had issues with skateboarders, and "we knew that was something pretty popular among the youngsters," Hopkins said. There also had been some concern that there were not enough activities in the area for that age group.

Hopkins said his group wanted to find a place that was safe for skateboarding and would not infringe on private property -- "something that would be designed for that use and would lessen the chance of injury with the youngsters," he said.

Other completed projects include Cape Splash, help toward creation of the current Discovery Playhouse and Melaina's Magical Playland, semoevents.com, the Speakers Bureau, a Career and Technology Center awareness campaign and downtown locator kiosks.

The project component became a part of the program in 1999, said Tracey Glenn of GlennView Strategies. Glenn is a member of the chamber's Leadership Development Committee, and previously was the vice president of organization and leadership development for the chamber for five years.

Not all projects will turn into a reality, she said, but the community does need some projects on the shelf for reference should an entity show interest in a related project in the future. Then, research already is available from the team's perspective, she said.

"The idea is just to work together to see what you get," Glenn said. If the project comes to fruition, that is fantastic, she said, but the point of the projects is to learn to work with your teammates and use each other's strengths for the betterment of the group.

"We need big ideas and dreamers," Glenn said.

Great ideas come out of the program, Voelker said, which mold Cape Girardeau into a fun place to live and work, providing places for families to visit and opportunities for people to connect and get out and enjoy the community.

ashedd@semissourian.com

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