Dan Johnson
All right, we should be live on Facebook. Cass, welcome to the beta episode of How Do We Solve
It.
Cass Fryman, Mayor of Plymouth, OH
Thanks for having me on today.
Dan Johnson
Absolutely. Absolutely. So for all of my Facebook friends out there who may or may not be watching
this broadcast, if you are listening into this broadcast, we are doing our first test episode of Live, of How Do
We Solve It, a new podcast focused directly on diving deep into how to address community problems and
interviewing the changemakers actually doing the work. And today we have one of those Changemakers who I have
the pleasure to have known for a little while and done really long reports for at you have. They were great.
I’ll forgive you. Good, good, good.
So I really wanna just dive right into today’s topic. We’re talking about community improvement. You
know, today when people think about improving a community and improving the, the parks and improving the
atmosphere for children, they go town halls and they go to governments and they’re like, Hey, you need to do
this. And you are living proof that that is not necessarily required. So that’s what we really wanna cover in
this episode. Let’s start with some of your background. You are the mayor of a small town in Ohio.
That is the, when Ohio people do this, the seas are you, which, which sea do you use to tell people
how close you are to a major city in Ohio?
Cass Fryman, Mayor of Plymouth, OH
We are pretty much right between Cleveland and Columbus. We’re about an hour and a half from both.
So we’re in a nice middle, but the, the easiest location I use is Sandusky because everybody knows Cedar Point
and we’re about a half hour south of that. So that’s kind of my gauge.
Dan Johnson
Okay. But before that, I believe you were and kind of still are part of a nonprofit called the, the
Plymouth Improvement Community. Correct. So give me an idea of, of your background and how you got into being
involved with, I don’t know if you started P I C or, or gimme a little bit of your background with Plymouth
Improvement Committee.
Cass Fryman, Mayor of Plymouth, OH
Sure. So Plymouth Improvement Committee started back in 2015 as an organization to create a
bicentennial celebration for our community on their 200th anniversary. And their main goal was to have a week of
events bringing people to our community to learn about our history, our heritage, and basically just celebrate
the fact that we are a community. And we made it 200 years. Their main goal was to raise enough money to have
fireworks because our community doesn’t have fireworks. We’re very small and that’s a huge purchase for a
community of 1700 people. So what we did was we raised the money and I wasn’t really involved yet. I attended
some of the fundraisers, I knew some of the people involved, but they had accomplished that goal.
We had a great fireworks celebration and we had like historians, we had dresses, we had people dress
up at the cemetery as famous people from our community and founders. And it was a great event. But after that,
they really didn’t have a vision or a purpose in mind.
And what kind of brought me to that organization was living in town and having kids and realizing
there wasn’t a whole lot going on in my community for families to come out and get to know each other. I didn’t
know any of my neighbors and I really felt like my community was in a, a holding pattern and kind of stagnating.
We weren’t growing, there wasn’t any excitement and there was no sense of community here. So that’s kind of what
brought me to searching for a way to grow that environment for my kids because I had that as a child in my
grandpa’s community. He was actually a mayor for a while and a fire chief as well.
So I was used to seeing family members have civic duty and participate in their communities and
making it better.
And I don’t know how far you want me to get into that right now, but that’s basically what ropes me
into getting into activism.
Dan Johnson
So, so what made you decide that this nonprofit or this approach to bring people together in the
community and creating more of a community atmosphere, why did you go about it using a nonprofit?
Cass Fryman, Mayor of Plymouth, OH
So we just kind of all had this vision of what can we do to make Plymouth grow? What can we do to
make Plymouth a better place to live? Me and several other of our married coupled friends started having kids
and we wanted a community for our kids to grow up together and, and have this environment that we were, we were
looking for, we wanted to create the community we wanted to live in. And we knew that the only way to do that
was through ourselves in, in making these things happen. Because there just wasn’t anyone else willing to take
it on here.
Dan Johnson
So. So what were some of the major improvements that you guys have made? Because cuz like, give us a
little bit actually a background on Plymouth, Ohio. Sure. I believe Plymouth, Ohio is kind of, is it a bit of a
Rust Belt town that a lot of people left? Like gimme a little bit of the story of this community before the
improvement committee came around?
Cass Fryman, Mayor of Plymouth, OH
Sure. So we’ve always been a smaller community, but we used to have a lot of manufacturing here. We
used to make Silver King tractors. We used to make Plymouth Locomotives. There was quite a history of industry
and the fate route Heath Factory was here. All those families are still here, but the industry has left pretty
much anyone who lives in Plymouth works outside of town. There aren’t any people who actually work. If we’re any
businesses in the community, there’s maybe a handful. So this is a village that we don’t have the tax base that
we used to have. We don’t have the employer fed revenue coming into our community like we used to have. So we’ve
lost a lot of those luxuries and infrastructure budgets that we had in the past.
Dan Johnson
And what was some of the impact of losing the infrastructure, the, the budgets that you had in the
past in Plymouth? Like how did, cuz you lived in Plymouth now for how many years?
Cass Fryman, Mayor of Plymouth, OH
Since 2008, so, okay.
Dan Johnson
All right. So you’ve lived in.
Cass Fryman, Mayor of Plymouth, OH
I grew up in a town next to it, so I’ve I’ve been in the area my whole life essentially.
Dan Johnson
So how did it transform as a result of people leaving and the lack of funding and like, what did the
community used to look like and then what did it look like by the time the improvement committee came
around?
Cass Fryman, Mayor of Plymouth, OH
Sure. So we used to be a pretty middle income community with very low unemployment. And once those
industries left, we’ve got a ton of vacant business buildings, industrial storage warehouses that are empty. And
at the 2008 housing crisis, we got decimated with foreclosures. There were a ton of vacant houses. We also had a
lot of out of town landlords scooping up these cheap properties. And the problem with that is then they sat
vacant and they have dilapidated over the years. So a lot of cans were kicked down the road over the last couple
of decades. And property values have plummeted and every street has a problem house on it now. You know, like
it’s just the, the appearance of the town has really gone downhill.
Dan Johnson
Mm.
Cass Fryman, Mayor of Plymouth, OH
Okay. But we are working on that.
Dan Johnson
Yeah. So, so talk a little bit about some of, you know, you’re a, a small organization.
About how much money did you have when you, you first started the improvement committee?
Cass Fryman, Mayor of Plymouth, OH
I think when I started to become an active board member, our budget, we might have had $1,500 in an
annual revenue and project seed money. So we started with pretty much nothing. But, so you.
Dan Johnson
Got, you got $1,500, but you need to revitalize an entire community. Where do you start?
Cass Fryman, Mayor of Plymouth, OH
Correct. So we started with some smaller projects. One of the first things we did was we gave money
to the tee-ball and softball fields to improve them. They needed a lot of love, so we gave some money to that.
And they look amazing now, not just from the Plymouth Improvement Committee. Lots of local businesses donated,
and this has been a year over year process, but they look great now, honestly, they get repainted every year.
They’re maintained regularly now. There’s just much more presence down in that area of the community. We also
started just a small $500 scholarship for a graduate.
They, they have to write an essay about how they want to contribute to their community after they go
on to college. And then we select a person to give that scholarship to. And we’ve done that for three years now.
I think we’ve done that.
So just those little projects, we started with little fundraisers like an ice cream, social, a
spaghetti dinner. You know, we weren’t really reaching out to the businesses in the area for money yet. So we
just kind of grew it very organically through trial and error. And some things have stuck and some things we’ve
left behind. One of our little fundraisers that we do that’s still really popular is we work with a local
greenhouse just to sell hanging baskets for Mother’s Day. But we clean up about, you know, almost a thousand
dollars just for like three hours of work. So, you know, it’s those little things where you can just kind of
make it, make it work every year. We’ve also done traditional things like, I don’t know, grilling brotts at the
grocery store while people are walking in and outta the door. I’m like, Hey, you hungry?
You should eat this before you go buy your groceries. You know, so you don’t spend as much money.
So, you know, any kind thing like that.
The first big project we really tackled was the pool that needed about $40,000. And our council had
actually voted to close the pool indefinitely. And we were like, well, we don’t wanna do that. So they put the,
on us to raise this money to fix the massive leak and then also provide the money to operate it for the year.
And we met that goal and we actually funded it for two proceeding years after that too. So we really got into
raising money and getting stuff done. At that point, that was, that project was probably the pivot where we
turned into really a transformative organization to get major projects done.
Dan Johnson
So, you know, $40,000 is no joke in a rural Ohio town. And you know, if, if somebody’s listening to
this and they, you know, maybe their council is voting to shut down their pool because they can’t maintain it,
and they didn’t bring in enough money during covid or, or anything that happened. When was this, by the way?
Like when, when that, how long ago was this?
Cass Fryman, Mayor of Plymouth, OH
That I believe was in 2017 when we did that. Okay.
Dan Johnson
Okay. So how did you go about raising $40,000 for an infrastructure project? Which most people would
be like, well, the city has to take care of that. There’s no way we can do that.
Cass Fryman, Mayor of Plymouth, OH
This was the first time that we really reached out to businesses and industries in the area. And it
was overwhelming how responsive and receptive they were to donating money to it. We also just had GoFundMe like,
Hey, we need this money. If you wanna bring your kids to the pool, we need to fix it. And people po it up a
thousand dollars, $500, you know, $300 50 bucks. Give me your $10, I will put it towards this pool. You know,
and it was, it was a huge community effort. We, we had a few auctions and fundraisers and people really came out
to make sure that we got what we needed. And it was, it was really inspiring and empowering. And so Did you, I
can go ahead. I was gonna say, I cannot tell you the satisfaction we had when we presented counsel with that
check to repair the pool and operate it, and the disdain they had for knowing they had to run that pool that
year.
Dan Johnson
But they had all the money to run the pool. Why were they mad at you?
Cass Fryman, Mayor of Plymouth, OH
They just didn’t wanna deal with it. You know, it’s a headache. Pools are a headache and I totally
get that. But it’s also a really good public, you know, feature in our community. It’s a beautiful area in our
park and, you know, I’d hate to see it just get filled in and, and not used. It’d be shame really.
Dan Johnson
And the community rallied around it. They did. Did you, did you guys do like a big grand opening and
have like a, a bunch of people there who had contributed to the campaign?
Cass Fryman, Mayor of Plymouth, OH
We did. We had a really nice event. Like we had pizza, like the, the local pizza shop came down with
pizzas. We had music, we had glow sticks, we had after hours at the pool, and it worked out really good.
Dan Johnson
That’s awesome. Yeah. So, so do you think that the pool and other things like that achieved your
goal of bringing community together in, in Plymouth?
Cass Fryman, Mayor of Plymouth, OH
I think it really started, it, it was a good catalyst to see that we could make a difference with
the issues that we cared about in our community. And people saw that we were here to get the work done and make
the changes that we wanted to make as a community. And it really paved the way for us, keeping the promises that
we made to the people who had invested in us and the follow through, you know, like, Hey, we wanna do this,
we’re gonna accomplish it. We need your help to do it. And it got people to really buy into that.
Dan Johnson
So where did it go from there? That was 2017. Sure. You guys had a big launch and a big catalyst.
Tell us more.
Cass Fryman, Mayor of Plymouth, OH
Sure. So the biggest thing that we do now is we have two major events that we do for the community.
The first is the car show, where we have about 200 cars in the park. And this event’s important because this is
an event that’s catered more to the older residents in the community. It is a family event, but the focus is
really on, we play oldies music, it’s free, we have some food trucks down there. So it’s just a really nice
chill event.
But we do get our police department to close the streets twice on that day. And we do burnouts,
which is a huge deal.
Dan Johnson
That’s, that’s cool.
Cass Fryman, Mayor of Plymouth, OH
That’s not something you get to do in most car shows. So we have a lot of people come from all over
with hot rods and they get to do a burnout on the streets twice during the car show. So that draws quite a crowd
and it’s something really unique to our community. That’s an event that PIC has held this year is our 10th
annual car show. And we also use the funds that we raised for it for our second event, which is the, the crown,
the jewel in our crown, I guess, if you will, Christmas in the Village, which last year the costs for Christmas
in the village was $54,000 for this event. We do not make money on it, that is all expense, but it is a four day
festival in our square, and it is free to everyone who comes. But we have ice skating, we provide the skates,
it’s an ice rink. We have live reindeer music, entertainment, ice sculpture, carvers, 70 craft vendors that come
horse drawn carriages.
We do fireworks every year at this event. Now, you know, it’s grown into this massive celebration
and like I said, it’s, it’s providing a ton of experiences for everyone who comes and it’s entirely free to the
people who come. So that event has become the focus of what we do now, but we’ve also done some side projects as
well. We completely redid the Veterans Park a few years ago, Reed it, we had someone come in, we commissioned
them to do a flag mural on the wall of the business next to it. So we’re still doing community improvement
projects, but we do focus on community events as well, because quality of life is something that we’ve kind of
taken under our wing as our focus for now. But who knows what it may change to down the road.
But that’s, that’s kind of how we’ve evolved over the, over the years to, to create the community we
wanna live in.
Dan Johnson
So looking beyond just, we’ve talked about, you know, the numbers, the amount of money you’ve raised
and the, the cars of the car show. Looking beyond the numbers and talking about the human impact of this, what
have you, what have some of the people in the community told you about what these improvements have done for the
community?
Cass Fryman, Mayor of Plymouth, OH
We primarily hear extreme praise, like people love the events. We have such a dynamic outpouring of
people who come and say, thank you so much for doing this every year. You know, this is something our family
looks forward to. It’s become a tradition for a lot of households, depending on which day you go down, which
events are, are meaningful to you. And that’s something I love hearing. We have some pictures of kids just
absolutely lighting up when Santa comes down in the firetruck at the end. You know, it’s, it’s those memories
that we’re creating for families that I hope that they take growing up, that they wanna instill in their kids,
you know, to, to create this voluntarism culture. But those are, those are the most rewarding things, very
little negativity. Do we have, you know, other than, well, maybe you should try doing this next year, or the
parade wasn’t as long as it should have been.
Or like then volunteer and make a float. I don’t know what to tell you. You know, you’re always
gonna have a few complainers, but for the most part it’s very popular and very positively not.
Dan Johnson
And what do you mean by like a culture of volunteerism? Like that’s an, that’s an interesting word
it is to throw out. So walk us through like, what do you mean by creating a culture of volunteerism in your
community?
Cass Fryman, Mayor of Plymouth, OH
So the thing that I’ve learned being in this nonprofit organization is that there isn’t some magic
wand you can wave to make your community better. You really have to go out and put the work in to make it what
you want it to be. If nothing else, it does take a village. And truly we have really met that challenge.
But I bring my kids to events regularly because I want to instill in them the realization and the
commitment that you can do this too. And when you get older, you have to do this for your kids and your
community because it kind of sucks to live in a community where nothing’s being done. There’s no growth. You
don’t know your neighbors, you know, your quality of life isn’t as good if you’re not out there making it better
yourself. And I certainly wouldn’t want them to rely on government to get these things done because of all the
loopholes, the red tape, the bureaucracy, nothing gets done at that level. So, you know, volunteer organizations
are the way to go because you can just show up, get your shovel, and you can get the stuff done.
Dan Johnson
So for people who are in communities where they, they don’t know their neighbors, I mean that’s a
lot of communities around the country today is, is people don’t know their neighbors and they don’t, I don’t
know my neighbors. Like I, I know the neighbor who I accidentally throw the ball into his yard, the dog’s ball
into his yard and has to give it to me, right? And I know the, the neighbor who mowed my lawn for a little
while, but outside of that, I really don’t know people in my neighborhood. And you know, we’re trying to replace
a lot of in-person community with online community, Facebook groups and discord servers and god forbid, Twitter,
things like that.
And there’s definitely a hole that a lot of people feel.
So when you think about, you know, how can, what, what would be your advice for people who want to
duplicate what you guys have done at the Plymouth Improvement Committee in their community and set up an
improvement community in their community? Like where would they even start?
Cass Fryman, Mayor of Plymouth, OH
So it’s funny you say that because now that we’ve been doing this for a few years, every community
around us has an improvement committee.
They’ve all emulated that. And the best form of flattery is imitation. You know, I’m not at all
offended by it. I’m rooting for them. You know, it’s not uncommon for someone to come to us to pick our brains
on how we did something or what we would do in this situation. And we’re usually pretty happy to, to provide
that input. If you wanted to get started, the first thing I’d probably do is create a Facebook page and just put
out, hey, we would like to start doing some community events. Or even, we ask a lot of questions like, what does
community look like to you? What does, what does our village mean to you? What, what would you like to see
done?
How could we do that? And we just had a few meetings, you know, we met, we spitballed a lot of
ideas. Some of them we could do. Some of them were horrible. But you know, like, that’s okay. Like put it out
there and we’ll see what’s, what’s an.
Dan Johnson
I gotta know what’s an example of a horrible idea?
Cass Fryman, Mayor of Plymouth, OH
Gosh, without throwing someone under the bus. Sometimes when we talk about fundraisers, like some of
the ideas people have for fundraisers, one of ’em was like, oh we should do, we should sell pizzas. And I’m
like, isn’t this school literally doing that fundraiser right now? You know, just things like that where they
don’t wanna break, they don’t wanna break out of that box, you know, that’s all they know. So they think that
that’s the only way to do something, you know, so just saying, everyone else is doing that, we can’t do that.
You know, getting people to think more creatively. I think it’s sometimes a challenge, you know, just
because.
Dan Johnson
You only, you can only, you can only buy so many pizzas. Yeah.
Cass Fryman, Mayor of Plymouth, OH
Yeah, exactly.
Dan Johnson
But you were, you were saying, I interrupted you there talking about getting people together,
throwing ideas together and Yep. Like this is an in-person meeting. You guys met at a coffee shop somewhere,
or.
Cass Fryman, Mayor of Plymouth, OH
We actually started meeting just up where council holds meetings. So at our, our village council
chamber, you know, there were a few council, did you.
Dan Johnson
Guys all, did you guys all sit at the chairs and pretend that you were councilmen discussing the
important issues?
Cass Fryman, Mayor of Plymouth, OH
Yeah, I mean, I mean, they let us use it. There were several council members there, but the officers
of the, of the committee that were on there when I signed up were sitting in the council chairs just for flow
that way. You know, you had your public input and then you had your members up there. So it, it works well for
that environment.
But that’s where we started meeting. And then we started meeting at the Historical Society cuz they
have bigger chairs and tables and it was just more conducive to a vicar group.
But we’re pretty small right now. We’ve kind of closed in and we’ve honed what we do. So our
volunteers are more seasonal than regular, like, oh, Christmas in the village, sign up and then, you know, you
get a bunch of signatures and people are like, oh, I’ll take this shift, this shift and this shift. Or Hey, the
car show’s coming up and people will sign up for those things. But operationally it’s just a handful of us that
are consistent.
So we just meet at the American Legion so that we can get chicken tenders and alcohol. So it’s kind
of a win-win.
Dan Johnson
Sure.
Cass Fryman, Mayor of Plymouth, OH
Sure. That’s how that’s evolved too. But you know, for, for formal meetings we’ll meet in a bigger
venue, but for just our monthly touch bases where there’s just a handful of us, we’ll just go to the Legion
typically, which they let us use their meeting room too. So, you know, you get that good dialogue with your
other organizations in town and you can pretty much work with anyone and that’s a good feeling.
Dan Johnson
Yeah, yeah, I imagine so, okay, so you get a meeting together and you start throwing together ideas.
Then what, what is your next step after you put the meeting together in your community and you wanna do
something.
Cass Fryman, Mayor of Plymouth, OH
So you’re really looking for your, your first target. Like what is the thing you want to accomplish?
So once you have all agreed on what your focus is gonna be for that, you know, you can say maybe for a year,
like for the next year we wanna focus on fundraising to replace the bricks at the Veterans park because like for
ours it was all overgrown with Moss. It had shifted, it wasn’t level anymore, it just looked really sad. So how
much is it gonna cost for us to redo the brick, you know, clean it up, do the things we need to do. Then you can
also, you know, get your budget. Like how much money do we need to raise for this?
And at the same time that you’re doing that, think of organizations that can help you get that done
with us. It was the American Legion, that’s a no-brainer. Of course they’re gonna help repair the Veterans Park,
you know, they love that idea. So they gave us a considerable donation towards that. Well then we also found a
landscaping company that was looking to do some pro bono work to get their name out there and build their
reputation. So they cut us a great deal on what they did. So you just use these different things to solve your
problem. And it’s all about networking, getting the fundraising, but having that target in mind and then
completing it. And then we had an event, we had a musician come, you know, we made it a really nice ceremony to
basically unveil it and it’s completion publicly. And people loved it, you know, it was, it was great.
So once you’ve established that you can get those things done, then you’re like, okay, what’s next?
And that’s the thing about a nonprofit is you’re never really done. You’re always saying, great, good job.
Alright, rest for a minute, what’s the next thing? Because there’s always something that needs done.
Dan Johnson
Right? Right. And if you win, like there’s certain nonprofits that actually do solve the problem
that they set up to solve amazingly well, then you have this giant group of people who are very good at solving
this problem. What other problem can you solve with that group of people? Where else can you point the, that
nonprofit at?
So what would you say is the biggest lesson that you learned about people and their ability to come
together with this nonprofit?
Cass Fryman, Mayor of Plymouth, OH
I’m always, I’m always surprised in a good way at how dedicated people are to something they believe
in. Whether it’s, you know, teachers coming to volunteer and dump, you know, 55 gallon trash cans into the
dumpster during Christmas in the village to keep them from overflowing again. You know, there are people that
are willing to just do the absolute hardest labor they’ve ever done in their life for something they believe in.
And you’re always gonna have a few people that say, oh, I’m gonna be there, and then they don’t show up. Well
that’s fine. I mean, that, that’s gonna happen. But for the most part, once you get people on board with
something that they buy into, like they’ll do amazing things for you. Truly.
Dan Johnson
It’s true. It’s very true. So what would, what would you say your kind of parting advice for people
who want to do this would be.
Cass Fryman, Mayor of Plymouth, OH
I would say start small. You know, just see if you can tackle something that’s bugging a bunch of
people in your community. Maybe it’s an ice or a park, maybe clean it up or, you know, raise money to replace
some of the dilapidated equipment there. And once you’ve, you’ve done something of that scale, you’ve shown that
you can, you know, manage that kind of a project, people are going to jump on it because they wanna see that
happen in their community. They wanna, they wanna see their communities thrive and be a welcoming place where
they can walk down the street and, and there’s something to look forward to. You know, I would say just
basically just get started. Just get people talking. Create a, create a place where you can, you can have those
conversations, whether it’s online or in person.
I think in person is the most productive way to have your meetings. Just because there are people in
your community that are looking for neighbors. There are people in your community that are looking for
connections.
I was one of ’em. They’re there, you know, they, they wanna know their neighbors. They want to be
able to walk down the street and say, hi, Bob, how’s it going over there? And, and know what’s going on.
I think once you get started, you’re gonna find that you will have people ready to jump on those
projects.
Dan Johnson
Well, if somebody is in a community and they’re like, you know what? I am not quite ready to start
something yet. But I love the work you’re doing with Plymouth Improvement Community. I love the idea of actually
bringing communities together to get to know each other, get to know their neighbors, really push back against
this online only culture that we have for building communities. How can they support the work of the Plymouth
Improvement Committee?
Cass Fryman, Mayor of Plymouth, OH
Sure. So we do have a Facebook page. If you look up Plymouth Improvement Committee, we’re the only
one in on the web that I’m aware of. And you can go there and we do have places you can donate online if you
click around on it. I don’t know if it’s really active right now, but it should be. But we need to, we need to
raise money. Christmas is right around the corner and we need about $60,000. So.
Dan Johnson
You’re talking like a real fundraiser there. Christmas is right around the corner in June.
Cass Fryman, Mayor of Plymouth, OH
It’s true, it’s true. Like we have to, we have stuff booked in January, so it’s, it’s no joke.
Pretty cutthroat business.
Dan Johnson
That is fantastic. Well, thank you so much for the work that you do in Plymouth and being a living
shiny example of volunteerism and of course serving on the board. I mean that, that, that also helps. So really
appreciate all your work and thank you so much for coming on. How do we solve it for those who are watching, how
do we solve it today?
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