09/27/2026
I’m not sure there are words for the morning after something like last night.
To pull off what happened at the Grand Opera House takes countless hours and an unbelievable number of people saying yes. People planned and posted and built paddles and donated auction items and managed spreadsheets and silent auctions. Musicians played. Dancers danced. People ran lights, rafters, sound. Volunteers checked people in, checked them out, sold raffle tickets, bartended, ushered, tracked bids and solved a thousand little problems most people in the audience will never know happened. Businesses sponsored us. Artists donated their time. People gave generously. Someone literally loaned me a dress hours before the show. 😂 And more than 200 human beings walked through those doors—some longtime supporters, some people we had never met before, and even people we had randomly told about Centrally Rooted in a coffee shop. You showed up. And I hope you know how much that means.
I’m often the person standing at the microphone, so it can be easy for my face to become associated with what Centrally Rooted has become. But there is absolutely no singular person who gets to take credit for this. Our board, committees, staff, teachers, volunteers, sponsors, donors, families and this community have been building toward last night for nearly a year. And I especially need to say Benjamin Drury. As our new Program Director, Ben carried an enormous amount of the day-of logistics—the timing, people, transitions, communication and energetic flow of a night with an almost ridiculous number of moving parts. What you saw on that stage was possible because of an extraordinary amount of work happening behind it.
Last night we also dedicated the John Lease Studio and honored a man who helped shape me—and, long before Centrally Rooted had a name, helped shape the philosophy behind it. And I shared another part of this story: that Centrally Rooted was also born out of tremendous loss, from losing Tom to su***de and living with the ache of wondering what we can possibly do for one another while also understanding that we cannot control another person’s ending. Somewhere along the way, that ache became a question: What kind of world do I want to help build while I’m here? Last night, I looked around that theater and got to see part of the answer. A world where people show up. Where we use music and art to help human beings know their worth, build confidence, strengthen their brains and feel less alone. Where people decide that someone else’s growth matters enough to give their time, talent, money, energy—or simply their presence. Dubuque, I am tremendously proud of you. And what a gift it is to realize that I get to spend my life building this alongside people who get it. ❤️
