Volunteers from the Heritage Conservation Network of Boulder, Colo., are planning a visit to Ellendale to work on the ongoing opera house restoration.

In addition to the group's hands-on building workshop scheduled in Ellendale, they have begun raising funds for the opera house project.

Ellendale Economic Development Director Patricia Bowen contacted the group in February with a proposal that they include the opera house in their program. She provided information and photographs of the opera house to HCN Director Judith Broeker.

The organization's board of directors then discussed the project and decided that they wanted to schedule a workshop in Ellendale in 2010.

In the interim, HCN will work on fundraising for the opera house project, Broeker said. Their fundraising efforts will be coordinated with other fundraising by the Organization of People in Ellendale for the Restoration of the Arts, the nonprofit owner of the building.

The Ellendale opera house is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and was named one of North Dakota's three most endangered properties in 2007. The building will celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2009.

So far, O.P.E.R.A. volunteers have restored and reopened a section of the first floor of the building and have raised funds to repair the roof and back wall. They are working on replacing the subfloor of the main theater and on finishing the outside storefronts.

Volunteers from HCN have recently been working on the Hutmacher farm restoration project near Killdeer and will return to that site in May.