Online project looks to show that Merced Works

A few downtown regulars have started a project that aims to change the negative narrative they say they hear all too often about Merced.

Merced Works, or www.merced.works, is an online “pet project” of three men who work in Merced. Dan Alcorn, one of the people behind the website, said he’s not afraid to put it bluntly.

“It’s about changing the narrative that Merced sucks,” he said. “There’s not a lot of people that say nice things about this town. It’s not helping anyone.”

Merced Works is a burgeoning project that’s begun highlighting people who are doing new or unique work in town. As the website puts it, “Forbes once named us the ‘Worst Place in the U.S. To Do Business.’ Through weekly stories of people in our community proving Forbes wrong, we aim to show how #MercedWorks.”

The web designers are referencing a designation the business magazine dropped on Merced in 2011. The current list is slightly friendlier to Merced, which it ranks as No. 189.

The Merced Works team caught up this week with Mitch and Cami Makinson, the co-owners of MidState CrossFit on 15th Street. The team asked the Makinsons a set of standardized questions so readers can get to know the couple and their desire to try something new in town.

The owners said they were “honored” to be part of the fledgling project, and they appreciate the effort to change people’s minds about the city. “We’re all guilty of that,” Mitch Makinson, a Merced native, said. “As we got older, we decided we should try to grow the community.”

The Makinsons opened their nearly 10,000-square-foot gym in October 2014.

Another member of the Merced Works team, Steven Duval Ruilova, came to Merced to attend UC Merced, from which he graduated two years ago. Originally from Sacramento, Ruilova has started a science education nonprofit and now calls Merced home.

He said he’s excited about what’s to come in Merced, and he wants to be part of it. “Anybody who’s doing work here can feel there’s electricity in the air,” he said.

Ruilova said he envisions Merced Works as a sort of playful Humans of New York, an online catalog of New Yorkers, that focuses on the workforce.

Area leaders often talk about preventing “brain drain,” when the best and brightest leave town after college and never look back.

Alcorn said there are people all around the city doing new and exciting work. He said he hopes the online project can play some part in bringing people to town, whether that be UC Merced students or others, and keeping them.

“I don’t think Merced can afford to lose a whole lot of that (talent),” he said.

The website runners said they plan to regularly update the page, giving each subject three days or so as the main focus. The website is best viewed on a desktop, the team says, but plans are in the works to optimize the site for smartphones and tablets.

This story was originally published February 17, 2016 at 3:36 PM with the headline "Online project looks to show that Merced Works."