It’s the end of an era in Montesano.

Montesano Community Education (MCE) will call it quits at the end of the year.

“It takes a certain amount of funding to keep a program alive and running, and we’re out of funding,” MCE co-chairman Dick Stone said late last week. “It takes a lot of people to keep the program moving, and there’s not much new blood.”

Since about 1974, MCE has offered classes for the community — from cooking and crafts to after-school events. During its early years, through the 70s and 80s, MCE was an expansive system of volunteer-taught classes, but participation and interested has dwindled.

What once was a student body (of all ages) numbering up to 1,500, now is as few as 300.

Funding, too, has dwindled. A pool of funding in the beginning helped the program set sail, but that pool has dried. For about 20 years, the school district helped fund MCE, but in 2007, with the school district facing tough financial times, MCE programs were dropped from the school district’s budget.

Earlier this year, on April 28, organizers from MCE made a final push asking the school district to support the program. The school board members said they recognized the contributions of MCE, but they hesitated adding MCE to the school district’s budget because funding already was tight (according to a story in the May 5, 2016, issue of The Vidette, “Third grade to transition from Beacon to Simpson”).

Like at the April 28 school district meeting, Stone told The Vidette that paying the part-time coordinator as well as the three mailings per year were major expenses, and the revenue raised through donations and tuition were not enough to further fund the program.

“This is something we’ve been facing for a long time,” Stone said.

Now, MCE has enough to offer classes through the fall, but then the program will be out of funding. The school district has decided to keep a few classes relating directly to children, Stone said, including the Missoula Children’s Theatre, and kids’ after-school art.

“But they didn’t take up any of the cooking or craft classes,” Stone said. “The school district wasn’t interested.”

The final mailing was sent out this week. As far as organizers are concerned, MCE is over.

When asked, Stone said it takes about $20,000 per year to fund MCE.

“If some people want to step up with fundraising, they could maybe save it. But we also need people to find and teach classes,” he said.

Truly, MCE was community education from its first inception.

“It was an important part of Montesano. It was a way of allowing the skills, interests and expertise of the people of Montesano to be shared,” Stone said. “When I taught my baking classes, it was a round-table discussion. I was prepared with information to keep the classes moving, but it was an open discussion.”

MCE also had a hand in many of the city’s flagship events, including the Festival of People (before it was abandoned) and the Festival of Lights.

“It’s a loss to the community, and I’m sorry to see it go,” Stone said. “It’s a let down and a sad time, but without new people and new energy we couldn’t keep it going.”

The last of the MCE mailings were timed to mail out by today, Sept. 8.