Joining Forces with Mary-Jo Johnson

This isn’t your typical small-town story. 

But then again, Green Lake isn’t your typical small town. And its residents aren’t your typical people. 

This is a story of two groups of visionaries who joined forces to tackle a community’s revitalization which hinged on the adaptive reuse of its historic county courthouse. 

“It was like two trains on convergent paths coming together,” said Mary-Jo Johnson. “It blossomed into something much better than we could have done alone.” 

Mary-Jo Johnson

Mary-Jo is the co-founder of Downtown Green Lake Renewal, the 501c3 nonprofit organization that merged with Town Square in 2015. Mary-Jo and her neighbors, Jo Ellen Madden and Mary Rowley, formed Green Lake Renewal in 2009 as a means to revitalize the downtown Green Lake community. 

“When the Green Lake County Courthouse was vacated in 2011 and became a huge empty space, there didn't seem to be anything more important that would help gravitate the community here rather than repel them,” Mary-Jo said. “As far as revitalizing this community, this was the center of that wheel.” 

Mary-Jo, who also owns McConnell Inn, became aware of Town Square when she was a chair of the ad hoc committee formed to determine the best use for the vacant courthouse. Town Square co-founders Fran Hill and Phil Burkart presented their vision of a community center to the committee and Mary-Jo was hooked. 

“Our committee did some research and a feasibility study was done. When the study was completed, a community center was one of the things that showed strong potential,” Mary-Jo said. “That gave weight to what Fran and Phil were talking about and helped the ad hoc committee members get behind that idea.”

With the ad hoc committee’s recommendation, the county sold the courthouse to Town Square for $1 in 2011. Green Lake Renewal became an early tenant of Town Square, moving its offices to the first floor of the building. 

“At that point, Town Square and Green Lake Renewal were very separate 501c3 organizations, yet we saw there was a lot of alignment to our missions,” Mary-Jo said.  

Through research that both Town Square and Green Lake Renewal had done, the idea of merging the two nonprofits began sifting to the top. Each brought something unique to the table. Green Lake Renewal had recently gained traction in the community with the completion of the Deacon Mills Wharf project. Town Square had strong visibility and served as a physical gathering place for community members which was central to revitalizing downtown. 

The two organizations worked with a facilitator to hammer out where areas of alignment existed, how to merge missions and present them to the community. 

“The work we did prior to merging was key,” Mary-Jo said. “We spent good, hard time figuring out how those pieces would fall together. It was a really good move and turned out to be the best thing we could have done.”

In 2015, Town Square and Green Lake Renewal officially merged, with Mary-Jo taking a seat on the Town Square board. Over the years, Mary-Jo has served on the Town Square board of directors, volunteered at events like Town Square Bingo, Party on the Pond, and was a docent at the information desk in the Town Square lobby. She remains an active member of Town Square’s grant team. 

“Everyone involved so sincerely loves this community and never had any doubt that something positive could happen here,” Mary-Jo said. “Working together reinforced what a good move the merger was. This was the right decision for us to make and we never had second thoughts.”