SILVER LAKE - Just like Rick’s grandparents Russell and Pearl did years ago, Rick and Diane Kerlin donated property recently to the community of Silver Lake.
The 3.5-plus acres at 201 S. High St. will be the future home of a community center that’s been in the development stage for a couple years.
The foundation for the idea of a Silver Lake Community Center was laid over 20 years ago when Warsaw Community Schools closed and consolidated some of its elementary schools, including Silver Lake Elementary School at 202 E. Sycamore St.

    Shown are renderings of a Silver Lake community center. Renderings Provided
  

“It didn’t start until we started looking at the demolition of the school, like what could we put there?” said Silver Lake Clerk-Treasurer Tonya Conley, who has been a part of the committee developing the center. “As you guys all know, a school in a community is a big deal because it brings everyone together.”
“It’s the focal point, especially in a small community,” said Clifford Zehr, Kerlin Bus president, a construction committee member.
When the elementary closed in 2005, everyone was trying to figure out what to do with the building.
“We had a group of people that got together, and they formed ideas and they visited places to see what they could put in it. We had council members that were involved. It was just nothing could be found to be put in it,” Conley said.
When they started looking at what the town could do, she said there weren’t any grants they could get to renovate the building. There were grants to demolish the old and build new, or the town could put millions of dollars into renovations but that was money the town simply didn’t have.
“It wouldn’t have met ADA and all that either to today’s standards,” Zehr said.
The school originally had been partially built in 1930 and was added on to later. There were three levels to it, and if it was renovated, all three levels would have had to be made ADA compliant.
“It served its purpose for a long time, and that’s why the school (corporation) decided to move the kids to Claypool,” Zehr said, noting that he was not involved in that decision-making.
After over six months after the school was demolished in 2022, it was realized that the old school site wouldn’t be suitable for a community center.
“When we started with the schematic drawings for the community center, we realized we didn’t have enough space, so it was - basically, what you could have, was a multi-purpose room and that was it. That’s not what we want for our community. We want a place for them to go to and be able to have physical activity, plus the rentals and workshops and all these different things that we worked hard to come up with,” Conley explained.

    Shown is the site plan for a Silver Lake community center on property donated by the Kerlins. Site Plan Provided
  

Without enough acreage, there was no way they were going to have the community center that was envisioned. The law also requires so many parking spaces per square footage of building, and Zehr said the lot at the school site wasn’t conducive to that.
“When we first started kind of toying with the idea to do a community center, I asked the (town) council if they would step away and then we would get business owners and citizens because that’s who is going to be using it. So I figured they needed to have the right to say what goes in it,” Conley said.
Funding will dictate how big the community center can go, but Conley believed the community needed to say what would be built.
“I called and got some people together that I thought would be beneficial to do that, and we started meeting together,” she said.
The original committee started with 12 people, growing to 15. Now there’s five on the construction committee.
At one point, the committee put a survey out, which was a requirement for a grant they applied for. The Office of Community and Rural Affairs (OCRA) provided a planning study grant.
For the new community center, Conley said they’re going to be applying in April and May for a lot of grants from places like foundations and OCRA. Many of the grant-making organizations have specific deadlines for applications.
“We have four foundations that we’re going to apply to, plus OCRA,” she stated.
Going back into history, Zehr said Russell Kerlin owned most of the property around the Silver Lake school. He donated a large portion of his property for the playground and baseball areas. Conley said Russell donated 10 acres of his farm.
“It’s everything really,” Rick said of what the community of Silver Lake (founded in 1859) means to the Kerlin family. “The Kerlin family’s been here for 100 years. We started our businesses here, and the town supported us. It means everything to the family.”
Zehr said “it’s home. There’s other Kerlins who had businesses in town, too, years ago. A general store was owned by a Kerlin.”
Conley said her mom talks about the Kerlin store. Rick said it was more than a department store - it had groceries in the back.
As the community center talks went along the last couple years, the committee inquired about the Kerlins’ property on High Street. Rick said appraisals were done and the committee made him an offer on the property.
“I said, ‘I’ll do better than that. I’ll just give it to you,’” Rick recalled.
Conley said she wanted to cry.
“When Rick gave that land - if you’ve ever heard the saying ‘the gift that keeps on giving’ - well, we’re able to give to our community, too, just by his donation. It meant a whole lot,” she stated.
The plan is for the community center to be on the 3.5-plus acres Rick and Diane donated, with parking lots. There will be some sort of memorialization for the former elementary school, which was part of the grant received, though details are still be worked on.
“We’re focused on the community center now, but we’ll do a park plan where we’ll add some more recreational activities ... but we’re focused on the community center right now,” Conley said.
Not only did the Kerlins’ donation save on costs for the community center, but it’s also where people can easily access it, she stated.
“It just puts it all back together in one piece,” Rick said.
When it’s completed, Conley said the town will own the community center, but plans for hours of operations are also in the early planning stages.
Two rooms will be named after Rick’s grandparents. The multipurpose room will be called the Pearl Room, while the gymnasium will be the Russell Gymnasium.
“I think they’d be very pleased,” Rick said as to what his parents and grandparents would think about the Kerlin legacy continuing on with the donation. “My grandfather was very involved with the town in the early days. He was on that school board.”
Zehr said the story goes he also drove a school bus, which is what got the Kerlins in the bus business. He also bought shoes for children on the bus who didn’t have any, or sent the children to his cousin’s store to get shoes.
“That’s what community is about and I’m proud of Rick and what he’s doing,” Zehr said, and Conley agreed.
Rick said he thinks the community center will help keep people in the town and potentially grow it.
“A school is kind of the heartbeat of the community, in my view, and once that school was gone, it just kind of left a big hole in the community. And I think if we get this community center built, that’s some place that can bring people back,” Rick said. “And Silver Lake is a great place to live. The cost of living is a lot less than the bigger cities and we’re very close to a lot of jobs.”