3c hapter - Index of

8
C H A P T E R
Community Capital
It Takes a Village, or a Police Force,
or Perhaps Some Farmers
On a warm spring morning in early May 2009, Greg Rynearson,
a police offi cer in Clare, Michigan, was on a coffee run when he
received some disturbing news. It wasn’t a robbery or a homicide—
this sleepy, Midwestern town of 3,300 hasn’t seen either in years.
Rather, the alarm bells were set off by a rumor that the 111- year- old
Clare City Bakery was planning to call it quits in July. Back at the
department, in a stark interrogation room that doubles as a lunchroom,
Rynearson shared the news with fellow offi cer Al White. For
the two cops—burly men with matching bushy mustaches who were
born and raised in Clare—it was more than the loss of a nostalgic
fi xture of their youth. If the bakery closed, it would be yet another
shuttered storefront on North McEwan, a three- block stretch that
makes up the main drag of downtown Clare. Like many Michigan
towns, Clare was feeling the impact of a foundering auto industry
and severe recession. There were already fi ve vacancies on McEwan,
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