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About Harmony Café
Pre-Renovation Pictures!!!
Our History
In 2000, on a road trip to a youth development conference,
Shannon Kenevan (director of Harmony Café)
and Sarah Marjenka
(teen from Appleton West High School) discussed how the Fox
Valley really
needed a place where people of all ages and
backgrounds could get together and participate in unique
activities...where those who felt "different" could feel safe
and respected. This conversation
would serve as beginning
of a "dream come true".
In the beginning, Harmony Café was more of a concept than a
place. The idea was to create this
safe and welcoming
environment at various events and venues throughout the Fox
Valley.
One of the earliest activities was "Join
Hands Day".
Join Hands Day is a national event which happens
during the
third Saturday of June every year. It is a day where people of
all ages across the country join
together to complete community
projects. Harmony Café decided to do a large community
mural for
each Join Hands Day. Harmony Café's first annual
mural painting project was held June 2001 at the
Boys & Girls
Clubs of the Fox Valley and Headstart with lead artist, Eric
Rodriguez. Over 80 people
helped paint the two murals,
covering gang graffiti and cleaning an alley behind the
buildings. The
second annual mural painting project was
held June 2002 at Youth Go in Neenah. 94
people helped paint a
mural directed by UWFV Art Professor Judith Baker. A
benefit concert
for Harmony Café and YARC (a program for teens
with an without disabilities) followed. This benefit
concertwas initiated and organized by Harmony Café and a local ska band called the Exhibitionists.
Another organization Harmony Café collaborated with in the early
days was the Appleton Public Library
for a joint program called
"Java Jives at the Library" From 2001-2003, APL and
Harmony Café offered free
concerts for teens and young adults,
by teens and young adults.
These early activities were so successful that participants
wanted to have activities on a regular basis.
What came
next was the "trial" for the "Cafe" setting of
Harmony Café.
This was a collaboration with
Foxleys Cafe called "Fridays
at Foxley's". Over the course of nine months, Harmony
Café
ran program
each Friday night from 6-11pm including drum
circles, open mic nights, live performances, dinner and
discussions, monthly celebrations, karaoke nights, "graffiti"
poetry books, etc. This programming
averaged over 80
people per night...and over 1200 DIFFERENT people attended at
least one of the
nights in that short time period. This
program served as an experiment for assessing the community
interest in such programming and helped the people involved in
Harmony Café to refine their vision.
On January 1st, 2002, Harmony Café became an official program of
Goodwill Industries of NCW, Inc.
This allowed Harmony Café
to become an official non-profit program (under Goodwill's
501(c)3) and gave
Harmony Café the administrative and
programmatic support to grow and expand.
By the summer of 2002, it had become obvious that Harmony Café
was in need of new strategic direction
and planning. In
July, 2002, 49 people of all ages participated in Harmony Café's
second strategic
planning process. In summary, the
participants felt that Harmony Café needed a place of its own in
the
downtown Appleton area, that the space needed to be larger
than Foxley's Café, the space needed to be a
safe place for all
(with the Check it at the Door policy strictly enforced), that
there needed to be expanded
hours and days of operation, and
that it needed to happen as soon as possible to keep the
momentum of
he program going. In attempting to satisfy
those needs, the Harmony Café staff and Advisory Committee
began
the search for a building that would become Harmony Café.
The lease for our building was signed
on May 7, 2003 for the
location at 124 N. Oneida Street, Appleton.
Doors opened
to the public October 20, 2003.
What is Harmony Café?
Mission, Vision and Values
Check it at the Door Declaration
Our History
Meet the H-Team
Harmony
Press Room
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