In 2000 Jim Mitchell, along with his sister Katharine Nevins and her husband Neil Nevins established MainStreet Warner, Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to promoting the arts, education and community engagement in Warner.

After its founding, MainStreet Warner began hosting free musical performances in the Gallery attached to MainStreet BookEnds. These “Friday Nights on MainStreet” proved to be so popular that Jim Mitchell proposed building a three-season community park as an artistic performance venue in downtown Warner. Jim was in the midst of developing plans and promoting the park idea when he died suddenly in 2008. 

To honor Jim’s dream and legacy, his love of the arts as well as his deep interest in building community and fostering education, MainStreet Warner started fundraising for the park. Thanks to the generous support of donors and volunteers, the non-profit was able to open the Jim Mitchell Community Park in 2010 and the MainStreet Warner Stage and Amphitheater in 2013. Ever since, wonderful performances have radiated from the stage, entertaining local audiences attending summer concerts in the park, the Simonds School end-of-year celebrations, and the weekend showcases orchestrated by the Warner Fall Foliage Festival.

MainStreet Warner has also launched numerous education-focused initiatives for the town. Founded in 2005, The MainStreet Warner Literacy Project annually invites a well-known author or illustrator of children’s books to meet with all the students at Simond’s Elementary School and gives each student a book signed by the celebrated author. In memory of Jim Mitchell’s dedication to the importance of educating the mind and the heart, MainStreet Warner established the Jim Mitchell Scholarship in 2008 to be awarded every year to community-minded Warner students who plan to pursue a college education. And, beginning in 2009, MainStreet Warner has annually awarded the Jim Mitchell “Local Hero” Book Award to two fifth grade students who have demonstrated acts of kindness and compassion while at Simonds.

Mid-pandemic, MainStreet Warner opened the outdoor Children’s Park next to the stage and amphitheater. One of MainStreet Warner’s partners, FEED Kearsarge, established a “Victory Garden” in the park to demonstrate their Tray-it-Forward program. Additional plans are being made to provide more exploratory learning opportunities in the park.

Also in 2020, to further its community service work and cultural offerings, MainStreet Warner bought the Harris Masonic Lodge, conveniently located in the center of town.  

This historic building, originally a Baptist church built in 1833, has beautiful stained-glass windows, a Hook & Hastings concert pipe organ, and a long list of much-needed repairs. If MainStreet Warner’s fund drive, now underway, is successful, renovations will be completed in 2025, at which time The MainStreet Warner Lodge will open its doors for people in Warner and neighboring towns to make use of the restored and updated community kitchen, meeting room and year-round performing arts center.

MainStreet Warner’s slogan, “Something Wonderful is Happening in Warner,” was coined by Jim Mitchell, a longtime news anchor with WBZ in Boston. After moving to Warner, Jim became an influential promoter of the town’s businesses, people and events through Yankee Cable Network, ending each segment with the tagline that “Something Wonderful is Happening in Warner.”