Tribe's $1 million pledge helps Kroc

COEUR d'ALENE - Seven years ago, The Salvation Army Kroc Center was just an empty field and a pie-in-the-sky idea to build a community center.

A core group of community leaders gathered with a common dream. The goal was to start small. A business model had been developed that suggested the center would grow slowly to eventually affect 5,000 members. The community planned and fundraised, and the Kroc has come a long way since then.

Today, Coeur d'Alene is home to one of the 26 Kroc Centers. The local center has 16,000 members and a recent Economic Halo Effect study commissioned by The Salvation Army shows the facility annually creates more than $20 million in social and economic benefits in North Idaho.

"It's easy to see now what an incredible gift the Kroc Center is to our community, but when we first approached individuals to help fund the facility, they had to place their trust in The Salvation Army," said Kroc Center Executive Director Maj. Ben Markham. "With a pledge of $1 million, it was the visionary support of the Coeur d'Alene Tribe that helped us reach our goal."

Chief Allan, chairman of the Coeur d'Alene Tribe, said he remembers when the Tribe was first approached about the Kroc Center's capital campaign.

"It was a pipe dream, but the story was so compelling and the need so great that it was hard not to jump on board," Allan said. "We could see the vision and we knew we wanted to be a part of it."

Allan said the investment has paid dividends.

"You can see the positive impacts in kids who have learned to swim or received homework help, or in your neighbor down the street who has taken a class about money management or changed their lifestyle because of the things they've learned at the Kroc," he said. "It's hard to imagine Coeur d'Alene without it."