Dear Editor, With the decision to close the Gladbrook school finally made, we need to rally together to come up with other ways to keep Gladbrook Alive and Growing. I will admit that growing up I wasn’t terribly fond of the town. At that time we didn’t have a movie theater or a fitness center, it didn’t seem like there was much to do unless you were old enough to drive to Marshalltown or Waterloo. However, as an adult I have come to value everything Gladbrook has to offer. We have a bowling alley, movie theater, grocery store, doctor’s office, library, fitness center, pool, bike trail, and we are a tight-knit community that cares about one another. There are many ways we can attract new residents and keep the current ones that don’t involve having the elementary in town. Our bowling alley is struggling and needs new life breathed into it (if I had the money I would love to take this on), we need a restaurant back in town – we have a movie theater, wouldn’t it make sense for families to be able to go out to eat dinner before going to the movie? We also need to find a way to keep Wolfe Creek Trail from flooding or figure out a way to stabilize it so it won’t crumble when it does flood. Corn Carnival draws people from all over and brings back former students and residents to celebrate Gladbrook – we can come up with more activities that appeal to more people. I think we could add a dog park and that would be a selling point, who wants to drive to Cedar Falls or Marshalltown to let their dog run around outside and play with other dogs? We can even find ways to utilize the empty school building. The gym can be added as part of the fitness center for fitness classes, recreational sports leagues like basketball and volleyball. We could rent out the gym and cafeteria for receptions and gatherings. Open up the classrooms to Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, Camp Fire, tutoring, ACT prep classes. Use the cafeteria to teach students after school how to cook healthy snacks and simple healthy meals. Open up the gym to the day care center to let the little ones expend some of their energy, offer it up as a place for doggy daycare or training. The gym and classrooms could also be used for winter and summer programs such as sports or craft classes. Allow local clubs to use the classrooms or gyms for their meetings – set up tables so we can have a quilting club, knitting club, scrapbooking club, card playing club, etc. I love Gladbrook and I don’t want to see it deteriorate into a ghost town. Let’s work together and save our town. Jessica Ingham, Gladbrook