As a step toward growth, the Marine Mills Folk School has named a new executive director.

Kate Seitz, who currently manages the school’s communications and marketing in a part-time capacity, took over this month as the leader of the craft education nonprofit in Marine on St. Croix. Her director position is also part-time, so Seitz, 44, will continue the communications role, too.

Marine Mills Folk School began in 2018 and offers a variety of accessible classes for adults in traditional crafts and artisan skills including knitting, woodworking, baking and soap-making. Information about specific classes, most of which require no previous experience, can be found online at marinemillsfolkschool.org.

The school was founded by Robin Brooksbank, a longtime Marine resident and former city council member. She stepped down as executive director this fall. Now, with Seitz running the day-to-day, the goal is that Brooksbank can continue leading the organization’s board in longer-term strategic planning.

Folk schools are a global movement with roots in 1840s Denmark, though a central tenet — and a core priority for Seitz — is that each school is deeply local. What skills do community members have to share? What do they want to learn? There’s a saying among folk school proponents, she said, that you “stick your finger in the soil” and build a folk school around what’s there.

“The folk school is a community coming together to create something for the community,” Seitz said. “Everyone’s unique strengths coming together to form something greater. Everyone has a purpose, everyone has value — and no two folk schools are the same.”

And a good folk school doesn’t just reflect the community; it actively builds and strengthens community, Seitz said. Marine Mills Folk School aims to provide space for people to slow down, get away from screen time, create something tangible, get to know their neighbors and, hopefully, feel less lonely or isolated or anxious if that’s something they’re experiencing, she said.

“You’re putting your hands to work and letting your brain go somewhere else,” she said. “It’s the flow, spaciousness, an openness that comes from relaxing your brain and letting your hands take over for a while, from personal experience.”

The folk school shares a building with Marine Village School, a charter elementary school, and also lends space to several community groups including a knitting circle, bluegrass musicians and a bridge-playing group.

Partnerships with other organizations like the Marine Village School are a central way the folk school is growing while being responsive to local community needs, Seitz said.

Many folk schools, Marine Mills included, are typically geared toward adults. But in the new year, they’ll pilot an initiative called the “Spark” program, which will introduce hands-on folk craft to kids at the Marine Village School. The idea, she said, is to encourage students to explore what ‘sparks’ them, whether toward a greater interest in intergenerational learning or just the fulfilling feeling of making something tangible.

For Seitz, this was baking: When she was little, she said, she’d make plum dumplings with her Czech grandmother, who’d sing traditional folk songs while they worked.

And in a way, the values of the folk school are the same ones that animate the community of Marine on St. Croix — and that sparked Seitz to move here, she said.

Seitz, who grew up in the East Metro, has long felt connected to the St. Croix Valley, she said. In fact, her parents, who grew up near Lake Phalen, went on their first date in Marine and regularly brought Seitz and her siblings to play on the school playground.

Kate Seitz and her husband, Greg Seitz, are both writers; he founded the website St. Croix 360.

About a decade ago, they were living in Maplewood, and she was working in corporate strategic communications. The job was feeling less and less creatively fulfilling, she said, and she was seeking to both live and work somewhere with a greater sense of purpose.

So they moved just south of Marine on St. Croix, and Kate Seitz went freelance, doing communications consulting for a variety of nonprofits like Belwin Conservancy and, of course, the folk school. She and Greg Seitz also have two children, one in elementary school and another in middle school.

The way of life in Marine, from Kate Seitz’s perspective, is one where people prioritize a sense of communal well-being and engagement, finding ways to use their unique skills and time to give back.

That, in essence, is what a folk school is all about, she said: Building a democratic society where everyone has a place and something to contribute.

“It’s like an ecosystem with a lot of variety,” she said. “Not a monoculture, not a field of corn. A folk school is a native, healthy prairie, with deep roots.”

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