The Long, Good Run of Harmony Cafe
We will no longer be holding monthly public meetings at the Harmony Cafe in Appleton, WI.
We would like to thank the Harmony Cafe and Goodwill Industries from the bottom of our hearts for allowing our chapter to meet there every 2nd thursday each month, beginning on August 17, 2011. Our final meeting at that location was held on November 13, 2014.
We will be moving to a format of meeting twice per year publicly, once in the spring and once in the fall, which will allow us to hold public elections, as well as gathering support from a variety of different communities.
These meeting locations, dates and times are To Be Determined. However, we have been discussing Rhinelander, WI to be the location of the Spring 2015 meeting, so that we can have a group cleanup day for the section of the highway that Erica and other Rhinelander area supporters have adopted via the Adopt-A-Highway program!
So long, Harmony Cafe, and thanks for all of the memories!
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We received the following email from the Harmony Cafe last week:
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Dear valued friends, family and supporters of Harmony Café,
We would like to share with you, as many have already heard, that Goodwill NCW has made the difficult business decision to close both of the Harmony Cafés in Green Bay and Fox Valley, most likely by year’s end.
Harmony Café was founded as a welcoming, inclusive, and vibrant place to celebrate diversity. We have served thousands of different people through hundreds of events and scores of community partnerships, and affected our region in many positive ways, small and large. Harmony has been a caring, welcoming place for people of all ages, backgrounds, beliefs and orientations. We’ve been proud to serve as an active arts and music venue for so many years. Unfortunately, our café business simply struggled too much to keep Harmony’s doors open.
Harmony Café operates LGBT Services, and the Arts & Music program all of which are a part of Goodwill NCW (North Central Wisconsin). Without a venue for performances and events, our Arts & Music program will close at year’s end, too.
Our work in the LGBT Services (LGBT Partnership, Spectrum, and T-Force) will continue to grow in both communities, with offices at Goodwill NCW’s Menasha campus and programming at other venues in the Fox Valley and Green Bay communities. Those efforts have made a difference in northeast Wisconsin’s acceptance of all people, and we are committed to keeping them strong.
In the coming days, we’ll be posting information about our closing dates, and hours online. We also will work closely with program leaders, volunteers, and people who use our meeting rooms to try and help them find a new home. If you have ideas or information on possible venues or meeting spaces please contact us at harmonycafe@gwicc.org or 920-724-2233 in Fox Valley, and 920-569-1593 in Green Bay.
We ask for your continued support as we transition the LGBT Services, and say goodbye to our coffeehouses. In addition to our regularly scheduled programs (see the full schedule here) we will be having a “goodbye Harmony” party before the end of the year, and we will send updates about that soon.
Over the next six weeks, let’s make the most of the time we have left at Harmony Café and celebrate an amazing 10+ years of community collaboration. We have no regrets.
Thanks again for your continued support.
Sincerely,
The Harmony Cafe Team
