Fire Historical and Cultural Arts Collaborative

In January 2020, we purchased the building we’ve resided in for 15 years. At the peak of excitement for youth enjoying space in the building, we had to translate our cultural space online. During this past year, we began to see our social media not only as an extension of our space and programming, but a proud platform that can spread youth voice. With the limitations prompted by the pandemic, we grew 85 percent in engagement since the first quarantine and totaled over 2,000 followers on Instagram and on Facebook.

While we conducted intimate and small gatherings with youth last summer, and online, our social media accounts allow us to have relevant and authentic relationships with the wider community and village that surround teens in our community. Through sharing youth creations, direct messaging, “stories,” memes and calls to action, we stay connected even throughout deep and widespread hardship.

For more information, visit www.thisisfire.org

Arts, Culture & Humanities  Posted by 27 May 2021

Kalamazoo Downtown Partnership

While planning for the 2020 Holiday events in spring 2020, our community was hopeful that the COVID-19 pandemic would have run its course by November. We were greatly mistaken. As positive COVID-19 cases increased throughout the summer, the Kalamazoo Downtown Partnership, leaning heavily on Kalamazoo County Health Department guidelines, determined that it was not safe to proceed with the 2020 Kalamazoo Holiday Parade or the Holly Jolly Trolley.

With the cancellation of two well-attended holiday events, we understood that it was critical to the ongoing economic recovery of our downtown businesses to offer other safe opportunities that would attract visitors to downtown Kalamazoo. With the help of several partners, including the Irving S. Gilmore Foundation, the City of Kalamazoo, the Radisson Plaza Hotel, Consumers Energy and Meijer, we successfully offered 17 days of 2020 holiday programming.

“Santa Sightings” offered outdoor, safe visits with Santa and Mrs. Claus. Black Santa returned with increased program hours, and Black Mrs. Claus made her debut! Seven businesses partnered to help distribute two-thousand Santa Letter Kits to downtown visitors, giving them a variety of activities for children to do at home. Plus, Santa mailboxes were placed throughout downtown, encouraging repeat visits.

Twenty block faces were decorated with holiday tree lights, and a new 12-foot wreath offered photo ops. An outdoor holiday market, offered every Saturday in December, hosted 51 vendors, of which 91 percent were minority- or woman-owned. Businesses reported that 2020 sales were equal to or higher than the 2019 holiday season. 

For more information, visit www.downtownkalamazoo.org

Community Development  Posted by 27 May 2021

Kalamazoo Institute of Arts

Like many organizations, the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts underwent a radical paradigm shift after the COVID-19 pandemic began to spread through Michigan in March of 2020. When the governor ordered a mandatory shutdown of many businesses, we transitioned much of our engagement with the public online. While we are seeing more public back to our building, we continue to offer myriad ways to connect the community to our mission of the arts for everyone.

KIA’s Kirk Newman Art School now offers two different modes to participate in our high-quality studio art courses, with online Zoom courses and onsite, in-person offerings and workshops. To help stay connected, we have also offered “Spring Break at Home Art Kits” with instructions and materials for hands-on projects. Also included were “Take Home Figure Sculpting Kits” and “Cyanotype Kits,” both of which are popular with community members of all ages.

Finally, we are pleased to provide free art materials to any elementary student for participation in our upcoming Young Artists of Kalamazoo County exhibition. We are also working with the Kalamazoo Public Library this year to include an age-appropriate book in each child’s kit. That is over 500 kits and books made available to local children! The pandemic has offered unique challenges, but our staff, faculty, students, members and patrons remain dedicated to the KIA’s vision that the arts are for everyone. 

For more information, visit www.kiarts.org

Arts, Culture & Humanities  Posted by 27 May 2021

Kalamazoo Youth Development Network

KYD Network’s Community Learning Hubs are located at various sites around the city of Kalamazoo, supporting K-12 students in person with their virtual learning. The purpose of the art therapy in the Hubs is to educate youth on SEL (Social Emotional Learning) skills through an art lens.

Art therapy is a healing technique that involves making art through creative expression. It is about letting go and creating something; you do not need to be an “artist” to do these activities and with an art therapy outlook, everyone is an artist. The art therapy sessions are an hour long and consist of an inclusion activity in the beginning, an in-depth look at one of the eight SEL skills and how to apply it to the art technique we are doing that day, the art technique itself, and then a small reflection to sum up how the youth felt the session went.

Since we are living in a pandemic, our young visitors have been adjusting to the new normal, which involves wearing masks and social distancing. Despite the pandemic, the youth at the learning hubs are always enthusiastic and thoughtful when it comes to making art. Over the course of time that we’ve been doing art therapy at the learning hubs, the youth have created some really amazing pieces of art that they are able to share with their friends, peers and family members!

For more information, visit www.kydnet.org

Community Development  Posted by 27 May 2021

Public Media Network

When theatres and arts venues closed their doors due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the need to reach audiences through media platforms became critical. With support from the Irving S. Gilmore Foundation and local municipalities, Public Media Network assisted local arts organizations with the transition to online.

This initiative helped local groups, including Farmers Alley Theatre and The Kalamazoo Civic Theatre, to produce virtual performances for their audiences. In addition, music groups like the Kalamazoo Bach Festival collaborated with Public Media Network to produce their traditional holiday and spring concerts for their audience in an online format. Public Media Network’s team worked with these arts organizations to create complex videos combining multiple performers into an online arts experience.

The Fall Bike Celebration, El Concilio, Wellspring/Cori Terry and Dancers, and the Arts Council of Greater Kalamazoo reached new audiences for traditional in-person events through video concerts, presentations, interactive fundraisers and discussions. Many people enjoyed concerts featuring local musicians that were traditionally part of an in-person summer concert series.

The Kalamazoo Valley Blues Association produced videos for the 2020 Blues Fest through media production facilities at Public Media Network, exposing current and new audiences to this artform. In addition, content was developed to support local arts collaborations and Black voices in the arts.

Through guidance, training and production support, many arts performances will reach new audiences as they continue to broadcast on Public Media Network, showcasing the diverse and rich arts community in Greater Kalamazoo.

For more information, visit www.publicmedianet.org

Arts, Culture & Humanities  Posted by 27 May 2021

Rootead Enrichment Center

Rootead’s mission is:​ Reclaiming the village through cultural liberation by holding spaces for internal transformation, healing arts and birthing justice.​ With support from the Irving S. Gilmore Foundation, the Youth & Cultural Arts branch of Rootead was able to host programs for youth and activities for families during the pandemic.

Pivoting during these times was very important to Rootead’s mission because people were not able to gather in-person, and we were not able to hold public spaces for Rootead families. In the beginning, it was very difficult to obtain the information needed to assess what the community wanted during the pandemic. Rootead’s staff focused on making the tools that they offer easily accessible, especially for the underserved community who only had access to laptops and Wi-Fi in public spaces like schools, libraries and work.

Rootead partnered with the Kalamazoo Youth Development Network (KYD Network) to help solve families’ needs for hotspots, free meals, homework help and other support services. This helped connect families to Rootead Collective, an online community for Rootead families. We transferred all youth and family programs and activities to virtual programming on the Rootead Collective.

Ultimately, Rootead hosted virtual workshops and programs that have impacted 60 youth. Youth streaming performances have reached over 6,000 views. When the weather was warm, Rootead was able to safely have Community Drum & Dance workshops outside, which impacted over 150 families while following COVID protocols. 

For more information, visit www.rootead.org

Human Services  Posted by 27 May 2021

Western Michigan University College of Fine Arts

COVID-19 brought unprecedented disruption to higher education. While the financial impact has been profound, innovation has propelled teaching and creativity. Funds from the Irving S. Gilmore Foundation enabled the College of Fine Arts (CFA) at Western Michigan University (WMU) to creatively teach online, while reaching out to patrons via live stream technologies. One exciting outcome of this investment was a new work created for the Winter Dance Gala.

Early in the pandemic, the Department of Dance was uncertain what the Winter Gala, their flagship event, would look like come February. Would it be a live performance, or would it be virtual? Kelsey Paschich, Assistant Professor of Dance, wanted to create something that would stand up as vital work no matter the delivery method.

The solution? A collaboration with Kevin Abbott, the CFA’s new Director of the Center for Advanced Art Research (CFAAR). They decided to create a dance film that could either be projected during a live performance or streamed online. The resulting work, Recode, explores dualistic identities as they exist during the pandemic. 

Recode examines how information can be misunderstood or lost through the current modes of communication, transforming how humans are interacting with each other. Combining choreography with motion capture, video, animation and video game technology, they created vibrant virtual dancers whose bodies respond to the music, and composed choreography using 3D space in ways that would be impossible to do with live dancers on a stage.

The cast of student dancers was thrilled to be part of a new work that expands the horizons of what dance can be. Plans are being made for new collaborations, with patrons and students alike eager to see what the future brings!

For more information, visit www.wmich.edu/finearts

Arts, Culture & Humanities  Posted by 27 May 2021

City of Kalamazoo, Parks and Recreation Department — Kalamazoo Farmers’ Market

The Kalamazoo Farmers’ Market on Bank Street in the Edison Neighborhood attracts several thousand residents every Saturday from May through November. This popular activity provides residents and non-residents with fresh fruit, vegetables, meats, cheeses, pastries, delicious food truck cuisine, and a variety of handmade crafts and artisan items.

The market is a place where many Kalamazooans do much of their weekly grocery shopping, visit with neighbors, enjoy live music, and support their local economy. Monthly night markets on Thursdays have turned into a great event for the community with live entertainment and activities for families.

The City of Kalamazoo and key partners like the People’s Food Co-op have been working for several years on improvements to the market. The City has convened numerous meetings with stakeholders to determine desired improvements and upgrades for the site. A plan was finalized in 2019 that includes upgrading existing vendor sheds, constructing a new vendor shed along the western edge of the site, improving parking, upgrading the restroom/office/storage building, creating a fruit and vegetable-themed playground, adding an indoor market event building, and realigning Bank Street and the Kalamazoo River Valley Trail.

Phase I construction will begin September 8, 2020, and will include upgrades to existing vendor sheds and the restroom/office/storage building, the new vendor shed to the west, new concrete/asphalt paving in some areas and the realignment of Bank Street.

For more information, visit www.kzooparks.org/farmersmarket

Community Development  Posted by 27 Jul 2020

Kalamazoo Cultural Center — Epic Center Renovation

The Kalamazoo Cultural Center, in partnership with the Arts Council of Greater Kalamazoo, has re-envisioned the garden level of the Epic Center in downtown Kalamazoo. This project will take place in two phases, the first focused on increasing the capacity of the Crescendo Academy and the second to rework the north end of the level. A grant from the Irving S. Gilmore Foundation helped to create the financial foundation of our project. This renovation will activate and re-invigorate this space that invites creatives, makers and anyone seeking space for creative expression. Our new garden level, which will open in late 2021, will include more studio space, more office space, a multipurpose theatre and additional public gallery space. We are so thrilled at the prospect of being able to offer enhanced amenities for use by all of our arts community.

For more information, visit www.kalamazooarts.org/epic-center/

Arts, Culture & Humanities  Posted by 27 Jul 2020

Kalamazoo Probation Enhancement Program — W/P Diner @ Washington Square

The Kalamazoo Probation Enhancement Program, or KPEP, helps people transition back to their community through residential and non-residential rehabilitation programs for adult offenders. Our programs offer evidenced-based treatment and structure, encouraging participants to take personal responsibility in their lives.

Employment is a large part of keeping people from returning to prison. We offer both a hospitality and a building trades program. In 2017, we opened the Walnut & Park Café as a way for our students to get hands-on experience in the food service industry. The response from the community has been so good, we decided to look at opening a second location, this time a diner with cook-to-order offerings and room for meeting space.

Construction has been moving along on the new W/P Diner @ Washington Square. The diner is located at 1324 Portage Street and will be home to your favorite eggs, baked goods and traditional diner fare. We hope to have the construction completed just as soon as possible.

The diner will have an oversized kitchen to allow our vocational training program participants to observe each station while also getting hands-on experience. Students will have training opportunities in hosting, serving tables, acting as line and prep cooks, and cashiering. With the addition of the diner, we will double the capacity of our Hospitality Vocational Training Program.

The community support from local foundations, the Edison Neighborhood Association and neighborhood residents has been phenomenal!

For more information, visit www.kpep.com

Human Services  Posted by 27 Jul 2020