Leech Lake Band Hosts Groundbreaking for New Cass Lake Wellness Center

The Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe has secured funding for a new wellness center in Cass Lake that will have basketball, swimming, open gymnasiums, and more. The old Cass Lake-Bena High School football field will soon look unrecognizable, as the $42 million center is set to be built there in the coming years.

A groundbreaking ceremony for the new facility was held on Wednesday, where speakers talked about how important the center will be for area youth, among others.

“This new center will be home for health and wellness—not just physical health, but mental, emotional, and spiritual,” said Leech Lake District III Representative Leon Staples Jr. at the ceremony. “It will be a place where our youth can find mentors and opportunities. It will be a place where our elders can share their knowledge. It will be a place where families can come together to connect and support each other.”

“I really believe that this wellness center signifies a step toward healing and a step toward wholeness for us as a community,” stated Leech Lake Secretary Treasurer Leonard Fineday. “But really, it’s going to be up to each and every one of us as individuals as to what that means.”

The groundbreaking was not meant to be about the current state of the wellness center, but its future.

“When I look around here, I look at this land today. You know, I see more than dirt, I see more than trees. I see what’s the come,” added Staples. “I see families learning together, kids playing. I see pride in who we are and where we come from.”

Along with all of the lessons that the center can teach, at the end of the day, it’s made to be a physical wellness facility.

“A lot of youth were saying [that they wanted] safer spots to hang out,” said UNITY Midwest Regional Representative Marla Mesarina. “I just think this is such a great opportunity and such a great thing for our next generations to have safter places to go swimming, or a safer place to play basketball.”

The center, while being focused on youth, will be open to the whole community.

“We can have as many buildings as we want, but at the end of the day, it is what you make it,” Mesarina emphasized. “Creating those relationships with youth and really encouraging youth to come and, you know, try all these things is very important.”

“My hope and my prayer for each and every one of us today is that we’ll be able to break that same ground in our hearts and in our minds and dedicate this time, consecrate it to each other, to hold each other accountable, to move in that direction of wholeness, of healing, for the strength of our community,” added Fineday.

The financial package that was put together by the Leech Lake Band along with the state will fund the construction of the Cass Lake wellness center, as well as a new facility in the Ball Club community and an expansion of the Kego Lake Community Center. Each of these facilities aims to promote health and community within their respective areas.