Lekin

On Monday, Danielle Lekin officially assumes her duties as newly hired executive director of the Marshalltown Central Business District (MCBD). The nonprofit organization’s vision is: “to provide a greater sense of community by being a destination place for retail, restaurants and businesses.” Lekin says she’s up for the challenge, but adds she has big shoes to fill. “Fun” was the word that immediately came to mind when she learned of the opportunity.

“I’ve got big shoes to fill, and high expectations, but I always rise to a challenge. I’m so excited to take this on and be more integrated into Marshalltown and just really hopefully continue to improve the community. I’m raising a young child here, and I want this to be a great place for my adult child to come back and visit,” she said.

Lekin has known former executive director Deb Millizer for more than 10 years.

“When I saw that she was leaving her position, I thought, I would like to be involved with the businesses and with the community and events for the community, and making the community a better place and an attractive place to families and individuals,” Lekin added. “I was actually not in the job market at that time, but I just applied and then I was offered an interview and brought all of my experience to the table and said I’ll take the job.”

Her hometown is Indianola, although she’s lived in several places before settling in Marshalltown last July. Upon moving to town she reached out to Millizer about volunteer opportunities and she and her family helped out at Bee Ridiculous Day.

After high school, Lekin spent a year at ISU before dropping out. She’d been employed with APAC, a telecommunications firm, since age 16. Roles varied from taking hotel reservations to Sears catalog orders.

“My position was cut in 2006, so I went back to school. I had a one-year-old daughter,” she noted.

She later graduated from UNI with a degree in family services.

“I worked in child welfare, and then I worked in domestic violence advocacy. I ran a transitional housing program for victims of domestic violence, and then I was a Program Specialist for the Human Trafficking Prevention Program through YSS for a while,” she said.

Lekin currently is the bookkeeper at Pilgrim Heights, a position she will remain in as it entails only a few hours a week of work.

“All of my experience is in nonprofits. Transitional housing was a grant-funded program. I’ve done grant reporting and grant management there,” she said. “I currently work at a nonprofit — Pilgrim Heights.”

She also used to teach financial literacy at the State Training School.

Moving to Marshalltown and putting down roots has been a longtime dream.

“I really want to be integrated into Marshalltown. We moved to Marshalltown because I wanted to move here for several years, probably at least five years, but my daughter was still in high school,” she noted. “Finally, last year, all the stars aligned, and we found a house, and so we relocated. It was really important to me to be integrated into the community.”

Her family attends programming through Marshalltown Public Library and Marshall County Conservation, among other local entities.

“What we prioritize in our family is literature and art,” she added.

She has been with her partner Justin for almost 10 years. Her daughter Libby is a sophomore at Grinnell College and her son Fletcher is 7 years old. Hobbies include reading, crafting, home interior and embroidery.

As she begins her duties with MCBD, she wants to broaden the organization’s social media footprint such as joining Instagram and TikTok, and create short-form videos. She studies what other cities are doing for their downtowns.

“We have some great annual offerings. I think we could add some events. I’m just not sure what those are. I think that requires a lot of evaluation of our demographics and what’s been successful here and what’s successful (in) other places,” she said. “I think the events we have are so successful, and obviously we want to continue to do those. I try not to go into things with preconceived notions, because I like a collaborative effort, so I really want to kind of get in, get my feet wet, figure out what’s going on, and then let my creativity take over from there,” she said.

The role of executive director is the only paid MCBD position, with an all-volunteer board. She may be reached at: director@marshalltownmainstreet.org.