Encore February 2016

Embarking on ‘Second Acts’

The eclectic Electric Jug Band

Meet Lucy Dilley

February 2016

Makerspaces Coming soon to Kalamazoo?

Great goods at the Winter Market

Southwest Michigan’s Magazine

Blanche Patterson died in 1995.

Today she’s making sure Kalamazoo area kids have new shoes for their first day of school.

Blanche was an entrepreneur who loved Kalamazoo. Her family opened the first McDonald’s franchise in Southwest Michigan and she was one of the company’s first female franchisees. Despite her professional success, she was humble, and did most of her giving quietly. Grants from the legacy created in her memory support many local nonprofits, including the First Day Shoe Fund, which provides new shoes to school-age kids whose families can’t afford them; and KC Ready 4s, which works to make sure all Kalamazoo County four year olds have access to high quality pre-kindergarten experiences.

We can help you show your love for Kalamazoo and leave a legacy too.

Give us a call us at 269.381.4416 or visit www.kalfound.org to learn how.

equity | education

“The day of the crash, I broke my pelvis in multiple places, herniated three discs, broke four ribs — for every kind of bone in my body, it felt like I broke at least one of them. For the first couple days, the doctors were concerned I wouldn’t make it. Then they said there was a good chance I might not walk again. Or even be able to feed myself. I needed to have extensive surgeries, and it took close to a dozen specialists, but I am able to walk and care for myself again and do just about everything I could before. I’ve done really, really well, and I honestly believe it’s because everybody at Bronson was so careful and worked so well together.”

Rachel, Kalamazoo, Michigan

To learn more about Rachel’s care at the region’s only Level I Trauma Center, visit bronsonpositivity.com/trauma.

Embarking on ‘Second Acts’

The eclectic Electric Jug Band

Meet Lucy Dilley

Great goods at the Winter Market

BUSINESS COVERAGE Commercial Property Commercial General Liability Workers Compensation Business Automobile Commercial Umbrella

February 2016

Southwest Michigan’s Magazine

Makerspaces Coming soon to Kalamazoo?

Publisher

encore publications, inc.

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marie lee

We offer a full range of insurance products to meet your specific insurance needs including: • HORTICULTURE • FARMS • CRAFT BREWERIES / WINERIES • MANUFACTURING • HOME HEALTHCARE • MOVING & STORAGE • WORKERS COMPENSATION • PERSONAL LINES Athens

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Encore Magazine is published 12 times yearly. Copyright 2016, Encore Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. Editorial, circulation and advertising correspondence should be sent to:

The staff at Encore welcomes written comment from readers, and articles and poems for submission with no obligation to print or return them. To learn more about us or to comment, you may visit www.encorekalamazoo. com. Encore subscription rates: one year $36, two years $70. Current single issue and newsstand $4, $10 by mail.

Back issues $6, $12 by mail. Advertising rates on request.

Closing date for space is 28 days prior to publication date.

Final date for print-ready copy is 21 days prior to publication date.

CONTENTS

F e b r u a r y 2016

FEATURES Second Acts

20

Making a Makerspace

24

After a lifetime of working, these retirees “aren’t done yet”

There's a movement afoot to create a space for innovation and invention in Kalamazoo

DEPARTMENTS 6 Contributors

Up Front 8 First Things — What’s happening in SW Michigan 10 Suspended Major — Group seeks to reinstate WMU’s Africana Studies program

12

15 17

46

Savor

Winter Farmers’ Market — Fresh foods and goods are available in the off-season

Enterprise

Nurturing Success — Bob and Doree Boyle have made their family business thrive Home Exercise — Busy lives fuel Genesis Fitness & Wellness’ success

Back Story

Meet Lucy Dilley — The Can-Do Kitchen’s leader is helping launch new food enterprises

ARTS

30 Electric Jug Band

This band’s music is as eclectic as its members 33 Preserving Nature on the Page

An artist helps capture ‘endangered landscapes’

drawn by another

36 Events of Note 41 Poetry

w w w.encorekalamazoo.com | 5

CONTRIBUTORS ENCORE

Olga Bonfiglio

Olga was busy for Encore this month.

She profiles four inspiring retirees who are engaging in their “second acts,” she introduces readers to Bob and Doree Boyle and the family manufacturing business they’ve nurtured to success, and she delves into how Kalamazoo’s Bank Street Winter Market came to be. In addition to working as a freelance writer for Encore, Olga teaches English as a Second Language and is a staff writer for the College of Arts and Sciences at Western Michigan University.

Marie Lee

As Encore’s editor, Marie doesn’t get to write articles very often, but this month two stories sparked her journalistic interest. “Genesis Fitness and Wellness is a great business that is thriving because of its owners’ passion for what they do,” she says. “Their commitment to mission is inspirational.” Speaking of commitment, Marie was also drawn to artist Suzanne Siegel's work to preserve the landscape drawings of friend and fellow artist Alan Freeman in a new book. “We could all use a friend like her,” Marie says.

J. Gabriel Ware

To coincide with this month's observance of Black History Month, Western Michigan University student J. Gabriel writes about the efforts to reinstate WMU's Africana Studies program. "Working on this story, I was most intrigued by the events that led to the program's creation,” he says. “Those who started the program were true to the times of the 1960s. Whether it was fighting for civil rights, protesting the Vietnam War or advocating free speech on campus, they were a very brave group of individuals who boldly stood up for what they believed in." J. Gabriel will graduate in May with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and is also studying in the WMU School of Communication’s accelerated graduate degree program.

6 | ENCORE FEBRUARY 2016

Kara Norman

For this issue, Kara writes about Kalamazoo’s maker culture and the musical group Electric Jug Band that exists because of kitchen utensils and The Muppets. She enjoyed meeting the minds behind the maker movement because she’s a craft nerd herself and her palms itch whenever she walks into Home Depot. As for Electric Jug Band, she says there may be nothing more gracious than a crew of people who embrace the chaos of live jam music but are willing to sip tea and beer while you make them translate raw passion into words.

Robert M. Weir “Go while you can” is a phrase often spoken by the 60-plus crowd and as an international traveler and blogger, Robert has also met humanitarians who do for others while they can. They sparked his interest in encore.org, an organization that provides the means for community service in the “encore years” of post-retirement. Robert details their service in a sidebar to this month’s “Second Acts” feature.

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UP FRONT ENCORE

First Things Something Musical

Eclectic lineup at Cooper’s Glen Music Festival Music festival fans, listen up: You don't have to wait for summer to get your festival fix. You can catch some great national and regional acoustic and vocal musical acts at the Cooper’s Glen Music Festival Feb. 5 and 6 at the Radisson Plaza Hotel, 100. W. Michigan Ave. The festival, presented by the Great Lakes Acoustic Music Association, will feature performances and workshops by a diverse mix of acts, including The Voice finalist Joshua Davis (and his trio), The SteelDrivers, Josh White Jr., The Steel Wheels, The Red Sea Pedestrians and Ten Strings & a Goat Skin.

Evening performances begin at 7 p.m. Friday and 5 p.m. Saturday.

Saturday also offers a full day of workshops interspersed with performances, beginning at 11 a.m.

Tickets are $35 for admission to Friday concerts and Saturday workshops, while an all-weekend pass to all concerts and workshops is $50. Children 16 and under are admitted free.

For a concert and workshop schedule and ticket information, visit greatlakesacoustic.org or call 459–5144.

Something Creative

Learn an artistic method to meditate Relax,

meditate and create something beautiful at the same time at the Zentangle Meditative Art workshop at 6 p.m. Feb. 23 at the Kalamazoo Public Library’s Washington Square Branch, 1244 Portage St. Instructor Carrie Dunn will introduce the Zentangle Method, a meditative practice in which participants draw structured patterns. Pen and paper will be provided, and participants will be introduced to at least four Zen patterns while engaging in meditative practices.

The program is free, but registration is required. To register, visit kpl.gov/Washington-square or call 342– 9837.

8 | ENCORE FEBRUARY 2016

ENCORE UP FRONT

Something Fun

Learn how to cross-country ski Want to learn a new way to enjoy winter’s bounty (as in snow)? Learn to cross-country ski at a class offered at 9 a.m. Feb. 6 at Milham Park Golf Course, 4200 Lovers Lane.

This introductory class will teach safety tips, proper use of equipment and how to traverse a variety of winter terrain. It will also teach the diagonal stride with opposite and double poling, moving and stationary turns, uphill-downhill techniques and how to choose and use cross-country equipment and clothing.

Participants may bring their own equipment or arrange for ski rentals through Lee's Adventure Sports. The class will be held provided there is at least 4 inches of snow cover.

Tickets for the event are $20 for those 15 and older and $15 for children ages 8-14. Those who want to participate must register for the event by Feb. 3 in person at Lee’s Adventure Sports, 311 Kilgore Road, or the City of Portage Parks & Recreation Department, 7719 S. Westnedge Ave. For more information, call 329-4522.

Ten Strings & a Goat Skin

Something Competitive

See synchronized skaters compete Athletes from across the U.S. will be strapping on

their figure skates in Kalamazoo to compete in the 2016 U.S. Synchronized Skating Championships Feb. 23-27 at Wings Event Center, 3600 Vanrick Drive.

Synchronized skating is a team sport in which teams of eight to 20 skaters perform a program together. It is characterized by teamwork, speed, intricate formations and challenging step sequences.

The February competition, hosted by the Greater Kalamazoo Skating Association, features skaters from 10 levels, juvenile through masters, with top teams claiming a berth at the World Championships or qualifying for other international competitions.

Tickets are $25 for each day of competition. For tickets or more information, visit wingseventcenter.com or call 345–1125.

w w w.encorekalamazoo.com | 9

UP FRONT ENCORE

Suspended Major

Group seeks to bring back WMU’s Africana Studies program J. GABRIEL WARE

Mike Lanka

by

from Western Michigan University in December, and many supporters of the program fear that she may be the last person to do so.

The Africana Studies program, which is designed to explore the history and global experiences of people of African descent, was suspended and placed under review in the fall of 2011, due to a significant decline in program enrollment, according to Dr. Sherine Obare, interim associate dean of WMU’s College of Arts and Sciences.

Students who were already in the program were able to earn their degrees, but the program no longer enrolls new students.

But a group of WMU faculty, staff and students is spearheading an effort to reinstate the suspended program. The Reinstitute Africana Studies Program Project began in 2014, and the group was awarded a Diversity Change Initiative Grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to pursue its goal. The members of the project team used the funds to

10 | ENCORE FEBRUARY 2016

Among those working to reinstate WMU’s Africana Studies program are, from left, Dr. Onaiwu Ogbomo, Umar Abdul-Mutakallim, Mimi Abdul Bellamy and WMU student DePaula Hill.

organize campus discussions, town hall meetings and film discussions to bring attention to the current state of the program and generate support. They initiated a petition that they say more than 500 people signed and that received endorsement from the Western Student Association, WMU’s student government.

Dr. Onaiwu Ogbomo, an Africana Studies professor at WMU, says he sensed trouble with the program not long after he was hired in 2006.

“There was no financial support for the program,” Ogbomo says.

“When we lost faculty due to retirement or resignation, there was no attempt by the university to replace the faculty. It’s very difficult to sustain courses when you don’t have professors.”

Brian Powers

Katie Pearson earned a bachelor’s degree in Africana Studies

Brian Powers

ENCORE UP FRONT

them being lazy,” she says. “Even the stereotype that black people are violent and threatening still persists today. That’s one of the reasons why we see stories in the media today of so many unarmed black men being killed.”

DePaula Hill, now a WMU senior, came to the university in 2011 with the intent of enrolling in the Africana Studies program. When she learned the program was going to be suspended, she majored in Gender and Women’s Studies instead, but takes Africana Studies courses taught by Konaté whenever one is offered.

“One thing I learned in Dr. Konaté’s class is that race doesn’t biologically exist. It’s a social construct created by people,” Hill says. “If there wasn’t this idea of race, there wouldn’t be systematic oppression, and people wouldn’t be seen as inferior because of their skin color.”

Graduate Katie Pearson agrees with Hill. “As a white woman, I make a lot of people uncomfortable when Italk about the injustices happening to black people,” Pearson says. “Just listening to how some of my family, friends and coworkers talk about these issues makes me wish they all could take an Africana Studies course.”

Konaté and Ogbomo say they believe they are making progress in getting the program reinstated. They say Dr. Keith Hearit, interim dean of WMU’s College of Arts and Sciences, and Obare have shown support for their efforts and starting last summer, Konaté has been teaching an Africana Studies course at WMU each semester.

Hearit says that the program’s status is definitely on the university’s radar and that a decision about it is on the College’s agenda for resolution by the end of the spring semester.

“We are absolutely working with all the constituencies to have a plan going forward,” Hearit says.

Brian Powers

The Africana Studies program was the result of a student protest and takeover of the WMU student union following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. Kalamazoo native Umar AbdulMutakallim, a WMU sophomore at the time, says that the protesters were both black and white students.

“We were fed up with the blatant racism on campus, and King’s assassination was the tipping point,” Abdul-Mutakallim says. “The students locked themselves in the student center and made their list of demands. One of the demands was to have a program that dealt with the experiences of African Americans.”

The university responded by creating the Black Americana Studies program in 1970, which focused on improving students’ understanding of black culture and history. The program’s name was later changed to Africana Studies, with an emphasis on the history and experiences of people of African descent.

“People have put their lives on the line for this program to exist, so we can’t sit here and let it die away,” says Dr. Mariam Konaté, a leader of the initiative who was also a professor and academic adviser in the Africana Studies program before she was transferred to WMU’s Gender and Women’s Studies program when the Africana Studies program was suspended.

“This university prides itself on diversity, inclusion, multiculturalism and building globally aware students, so it goes against those principles to close down the program,” she says.

Konaté says the Africana Studies program is critically important in managing issues such as racism, discrimination and inequality because it teaches students the origins of stereotypes associated with African Americans and how these stereotypes have real-life consequences.

“During slavery, black people refused to work as a form of resistance, and the plantation owners interpreted their resistance as

w w w.encorekalamazoo.com | 11

SAVOR ENCORE

Winter Farmers’ Markets

Fresh foods and goods available in the off-season by

OLGA BONFIGLIO

Believe it or not, it doesn’t need to be summer for folks to enjoy a farmers’ market.

The Bank Street Winter Market, which operates in a building across the street from the outdoor location of the popular Kalamazoo Farmers’ Market, is open 8 a.m-1 p.m. every Saturday from December through April. And like its seasonal sibling, the winter market offers fresh vegetables and produce, meat, eggs, cheese, coffee, baked goods, prepared foods and handmade products in an environment of music, energy and fun.

Brian Powers 12 | ENCORE FEBRUARY 2016

Brian Powers

ENCORE SAVOR

Held inside the Bank Street Bingo Hall, at 1157 Bank St., the Bank Street Winter Market was hatched in 2011 by Carl Rizzuto, owner of Papa’s Italian Sausage, and bingo hall owner Joe Mapes. The outdoor market, Kalamazoo Farmers' Market, of which Rizzuto is a regular vendor, operates from May to Thanksgiving and he believed that the area could support a similar farmers’ market in the winter.

“Carl has operated the concessions at the bingo hall for many years,” Mapes said. “In 2011, he asked me if I'd consider having a winter farmers' market in the hall. At first I was reluctant, since we have bingo every evening except on Mondays. I wondered how we could pull it off in between Fridaynight and Saturday-night bingo. But we did.”

To convert the building from bingo hall to winter market, Mapes rearranges the 100 tables used for bingo into the 80-plus tables needed for the 53 vendors of the market.

When the market ends at 1 p.m., Mapes’ staff resets the tables again for 6:30 p.m. bingo.

Mapes admits that Rizzuto’s interest in having a winter market surprised him. “Carl is one of the hardest-working men I know,”

he says. “I thought he'd want a Saturday off during the winter months.”

Rizzuto says he became convinced a winter market would succeed after he talked with vendors at the Kalamazoo Farmers’ Market and discovered they had products to sell and customers who wanted to buy those products during the winter months.

The winter market was also inspired by a more informal effort by vendors to sell their wares off-season in the parking lot of the Kalamazoo Farmers’ Market. The city of Kalamazoo put the kibosh on this endeavor in March 2010. Another winter market, owned

by Kavan and David Geary, operated in a building at Crosstown Parkway and South Burdick Street in the winter of 2010-11 but could accommodate only about 15 vendors.

“A lot of people don't know about the winter market, and they suspect the fruits and vegetables aren't fresh or local,” Rizutto says. “But we have a lot of greenhouse farmers in the area.”

One of those farmers is Jeff Payne, of Summer Sun Greenhouses/Farm, in Lawrence. Payne’s winter market offerings include a wide selection of fresh vegetables

such as lettuces, greens and tomatoes that are “certified naturally grown” in his five greenhouses.

“We use the same principles as organic farmers do but without the cost of organic certification, which is expensive,” says Payne, explaining the “naturally grown” designation includes such methods as relying on ladybugs and praying mantises to go after aphids rather than using pesticides.

Payne was one of the original farmers to sign up to sell at the winter market back in 2011. He operates his greenhouses year round as a complement to the 12 acres he farms during the warmer months.

“A lot of people think of hothouse tomatoes when they think of greenhouses,” Payne says.

“Those are picked green, which hurts their flavor. We pick our vegetables on Friday for Saturday's market.”

Opposite page: Fresh carrots for sale at the winter market.

Top left: Carl Rizutto, left, and Joe Mapes launched the Bank Street Winter Market in 2011. Above: Katheylynn Gold sells her Curvey Girl herbal products at the market.

Winter market regulars Pam Hoppe and Rachel Warga, both of Kalamazoo, often buy Summer Sun’s produce and say they love the winter market. “We've been coming all five years it's been here,” Hoppe says. “We've gotten to know the vendors, who have introduced us to new foods.” w w w.encorekalamazoo.com | 13

SAVOR ENCORE

Brian Powers

Jackie Smith, a former grower who now owns a landscaping business, has also been a regular customer since the market opened.

“I know the value of what it takes to grow produce, and I want foods that are fresh and high in nutrients,” she says. “I have my favorite vendors like Young Earth Farms,

Above: Summer Sun Greenhouses/Farm’s Jeff Payne, left, and Deanna Fritz prepare the produce display at their winter market stand. Left: Handcrafted cheese by The Cheese People of Grand Rapids is available at the market.

Green Gardens and, new last year, The Cheese People — and I'm willing to spend $60 a week for their products.”

Vendor Katheylynn Gold says the winter market has allowed her to maintain a yearround business selling her Curvey Girl herbal products. Gold grows her own herbs for the

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soaps, essences and healing salves she makes in a small cabin in the woods near Lawrence.

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ENCORE ENTERPRISE

Nurturing Success

Bob and Doree Boyle have grown a thriving family business OLGA BONFIGLIO

Lassiter Advertising

by

Bob Boyle once went to a circus — not to watch the acts, but to

spend time figuring out how the management moved all the people and equipment from place to place.

That’s the kind of mind that has brought Boyle and his wife, Doree, to own and run three Southwest Michigan manufacturing companies that they continue to work in even now that they are 87 and 79 years old.

The Boyles’ businesses are not highly visible — in fact, most folks around here may not have ever heard of Coxline Inc., in Parchment; Wellsaw Inc., on North Burdick Street, in Kalamazoo’s Northside; or W.F. Wells, in Three Rivers. But many people see one of those companies’ products on a daily basis: Those ubiquitous metal boxes that protect electrical, pneumatic and hydraulic controls for everything from substation transformers to industrial sprinkling systems (pictured above) are made by Coxline.

Bob and Doree Boyle are typical of many couples of their generation.

Bob fought in the Korean War, came home, got a job and married

Doree and Bob Boyle, sitting in front, are flanked by (back row, from left) Ed Smith, a son-in-law and manager of Coxline, Inc.; Al Stefanski, manager of W.F. Wells; Patrick Boyle, their son and manager of Wellsaw; and Dave Stover, head of global sales at W.F. Wells and a son-in-law.

Doree, and the two of them had children, formed a company to achieve the American Dream and later bought three other companies.

What isn’t so typical is that Bob, 87, and Doree, 79, are still working that dream three days a week from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m.

Bob finds it fun to see how his companies are doing as the next generation manages them, while Doree continues to take care of payroll, a job she took on from the very beginning, in addition to caring for the couple’s seven children.

“I wanted to do something to contribute to the business as well as taking care of our home and children,” says Doree, who married Bob in 1958.

Both Bob and Doree are native Kalamazooans. Doree went to St. Augustine High School (now Hackett Catholic Prep) and Bob went to w w w.encorekalamazoo.com | 15

ENTERPRISE ENCORE

Kalamazoo Central. After his military service in Korea, Bob worked for 17 years at National Waterlift, where he worked his way up from running a blueprint machine to engineering and acquired several patents along the way.

Bob says he’s just naturally interested in machinery, mathematics and mechanical things. In the early 1970s, he had a side job developing robots for the metal conveyor manufacturer Prab. That job spurred him to launch his first company, Boyle Engineering, in October 1973 with the couple’s savings and a $5,000 loan, which they paid off in a month. Boyle Engineering transitioned into a company named Fluid Mechanics and then into Robot Research, as Boyle engineered and manufactured robots for Prab and other firms, including Stryker.

“The secret of Bob’s success has been his gift of curiosity and enthusiasm,” Doree says. “And he always had an entrepreneurial sense about him.”

Bob is quick to point out he didn’t go it alone. One of the first tasks the couple did together after they bought Coxline in 1982 was to paint the building. “He was enthused to let me help him,” Doree says.

“Some businessmen don’t want their wives to work with them,” Bob says, “but a wife can make a huge contribution to the company if she’s let loose.”

In 1986 the Boyles bought Wellsaw, and in 1990 they bought W.F. Wells. Both companies make metal-cutting band saws. In 2000 the Boyles moved Coxline from Grand Rapids to Parchment onto land that Doree’s father had farmed. The house she grew up in is across Riverview Drive from the manufacturing facility.

During all this time, the Boyles raised seven children and put all of them through college. Doree says their success at running several companies and raising a large family is partly due to the fact that “Bob is a great delegator.” This trait is especially important now that the next generation is managing the three companies.

The Boyles’ son, Patrick, runs Wellsaw, and Al Stefanski and son-in-law Dave Stover oversee W.F. Wells. Another son-in-law,

Metal-cutting band saws, like the one above, are made by two of the Boyles' companies: W.F. Wells and Wellsaw.

Ed Smith, runs Coxline. Together, all three companies employ 100 people and sell their products worldwide.

“It wasn’t easy to let go,” Bob admits, “but they’ve done a good job.”

Throughout the years, Doree managed the homefront, maintaining closeness among their large brood. The family members often travel together to places like Europe, Asia and Alaska.

As for the relationship with her husband, Doree says, “We argue, but we don’t fight. The kids never saw us mad for more than an hour.

Religion has held our family together, too.” The Boyles are members of St. Ann Parish in Augusta.

“We’ve been blessed,” agrees Bob. “Even so, it’s not easy to turn over something you’ve built. But my son and sons-in-law have a good business sense, and they take care of everything. Maybe someday their kids will take over the business.”

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ENCORE ENTERPRISE

Home Exercise

Busy lives fuel Genesis Fitness & Wellness’ success MARIE LEE

Brian Powers Courtesy

by

“Our clientele has become really diverse,” Kennedy says. “We have clients that range from teens through 90-plus.”

“We are really seeing the growth in those who are in the mid-40s and older,” Dely says, “especially with those who are working professionals, because they don’t have the time. They really like the idea that you will come to their house and they don’t have to go out somewhere to exercise.”

Genesis Fitness & Wellness experienced 85 percent growth in the last year alone, and expanding its services to Grand Rapids was based on demand, Kennedy says. Genesis

Brian Powers

W

hen Rob Kennedy and Elisa Dely started Genesis Fitness & Wellness in March 2013, they were determined to provide the kind of personal training no one else was — in-home personal training, catering specifically to an older clientele, such as seniors who needed to improve their strength and mobility.

But they discovered pretty quickly that their customized, in-home model appealed to younger people as well. Now, almost three years later, Genesis has grown from the two of them to a roster of 20 personal trainers and 200 clients, and in January the company began offering its services in Grand Rapids.

Elisa Dely, owner and a personal trainer with Genesis Fitness & Wellness, laughs with client Martha Upjohn during a training session at Upjohn’s home.

hired five new trainers just to work in that market.

“We started getting calls from people up there who had heard about us and wanted to know if we would come to Grand Rapids to work with them,” Dely says. “That happened often enough that we knew there wasn’t anyone up there providing the in-home services we did.”

But Genesis’ philosophy about personal training and working intimately with people w w w.encorekalamazoo.com | 17

ENTERPRISE ENCORE

Brian Powers

in their home environments isn’t for everyone. Kennedy and Dely say they are challenged to find trainers who are as passionate about their kind of personal training as they are.

“It’s very intimate — we are in people’s personal spaces and we work with their physical beings. It’s never the same with any client,” Dely says. “You have to understand people’s physical needs and what they are trying to accomplish. Our trainers not only have to have the science and the knowledge, but they have to have the right personality, too. You can run people through workouts all day long, but if you don’t have the right personality for the person you are working with, then it’s not going to be successful for that person.”

To ensure that clients are matched with the right trainer for their needs and goals, Dely and Kennedy meet with clients before pairing them up with a trainer. Dely says they’ll spend an hour talking with potential clients to learn their goals, needs and limitations and then pick a trainer for them based on that information. And as clients’ goals change, they may need to be matched with another trainer.

“We are very upfront with our clients and trainers about the fact that we use a team approach,” Dely says. “Clients keep in contact with us to let us know how they are doing, and we’ll touch base with them. Sometimes a client might change their goals, such as deciding At right: Rob Kennedy, left, and Elisa Dely, started Genesis Fitness & Wellness three years ago and the company has grown to a roster of more than 20 personal trainers.

Below, Kennedy works with client Henry Upjohn in a session.

Brian Powers

Genesis on the Air Genesis Fitness & Wellness owners Elisa Dely and Rob Kennedy dispense fitness and nutritional advice on two broadcast shows: • Fitness Minute, Friday mornings on WKZO-AM 590 • The Lori Moore Show, 4 p.m. Mondays on WWMT, Channel 3

18 | ENCORE FEBRUARY 2016

they want to start training for a 10K or they are going to have knee surgery and need a trainer that focuses on and has experience in that, so we pull in another trainer to work with them.

“It's about what’s right for the client.”

Another service that Genesis offers is nutritional counseling. Dely is a certified nutritional specialist and believes that a complete fitness regimen includes dietary choices as well as exercise.

In the U.S., research has shown that the number of meals people eat away from home, such as getting fast food and going to restaurants, is increasing. Dely says that it’s important to recognize this trend and help people figure out how to eat away from home in a healthy manner.

“I have one client who works full time and whose children are in sports, and she’s constantly on the go, so the best way for her family to eat is to grab and go,” Dely says. “We work with that — help her to see the healthy options there are for them. We go to where people get their food and give them helpful hints to make the best choices – whether they are eating at The Union or Panera or grocery shopping at Meijer.”

While Genesis’ hallmark is its in-home training, the company has an agreement with Snap Fitness to use its facility at 2026 Parkview Ave. for those clients who opt not to do in-home training.

Genesis trainers charge $65 an hour for their services.

Dely and Kennedy say that while their business’s growth has been fun and challenging, they aren’t motivated by the financial reward.

“You have to be driven by the small successes, like watching an 80-year-old go from starting out lifting soup cans to progressing to 10-pound weights,” Dely says.

“It’s thrilling to see people’s lives changed.”

For more information, visit the Genesis Fitness & Wellness website at geneisisfitwell.com.

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Second Acts After lives of working, these folks ‘aren’t done yet’ story by

B

OLGA BONFIGLIO

photography by

aby boomers were destined to be a different kind of generation. Perhaps because there were so many of them — 76 million born between 1946 and 1964 — or perhaps because the world was changing so quickly and profoundly as they grew up.

Bottom line: Boomers don’t usually do things the same way as their parents and grandparents, and for many that’s true of their approach to retirement. Not only do most eschew the word “retirement,” but they are determined not to spend the last decades of their lives idly.

Instead, many are taking up a “second act” or an “encore career,” using their vast store of skills and experience to enhance their own lives as well as those of others in a full and vital way.

In this story, we introduce four Kalamazoo-area “encorers” who have taken up new careers and, as a result, are making contributions that even they are amazed to see.

From accounting to aiding the poor Jim Houston admits he is a man who is always learning and looking for ways to help others.

The former corporate accountant has found a way to do both in his second act of helping to establish the Community Promise Federal Credit Union in the Edison neighborhood.

Originally from Alabama, Houston’s family moved to Detroit in 1953. When Houston was in the ninth grade, his family moved to Dowagiac, where his father worked as a truck driver and the family helped an uncle whose wife had died and left four young children behind. Houston excelled at athletics and choral music at Dowagiac’s Union High School and won a scholarship to Interlochen Arts Academy. After graduating in 1962, he went to Western Michigan University, where he majored in music for two years.

In 1966, with the military draft looming over him, Houston joined the U.S. Air Force and was sent to Truax Airfield, in Madison, Wisconsin. While there, he took courses in finance, accounting and computer programming and met Marianne Novak, whom he married in 1968 (and who is also profiled in this story). After his service was complete, the couple moved to Kalamazoo and Houston returned to WMU to major in business. After graduation he began a career in corporate accounting and finance, working for the Kellogg Co., Durametallic Corp. (now part of Flowserve), International Research Jim Houston was pivotal in the creation of Community Promise Credit Union which serves low-income customers in the Edison neighborhood.

BRIAN POWERS

& Development Corp. (now MPI Research Inc.) and First of America Bank, from which he retired in 2000. During that time, Houston earned a master’s degree and a doctorate.

After his retirement, Houston taught business, finance and tax accounting courses at Olivet College and Kalamazoo Valley Community College. He continues to teach today at Ferris State University and as a substitute teacher.

“I love teaching. It is the noblest profession anyone can pursue,” Houston says. “I feel more fulfilled in teaching than I ever felt in my business career — a thousand times more. I feel I have helped enrich students, and when you help enrich another person, you also enrich yourself.”

That desire to serve others, plus his background in finance and business management, helped position him to be a part of the effort to establish the Community Promise Federal Credit Union.

Community Promise is a "community development credit union" that focuses on providing financial services to people with low incomes.

The credit union, which has received grants from the Kalamazoo Community Foundation, the Irving S. Gilmore Foundation and the Jim Gilmore Foundation, opened its doors in January 2013. Houston is the chair of its board of directors.

Through this credit union, Houston conducts workshops and teaches people how to manage their finances and do budgeting.

Michael Rice, superintendent of Kalamazoo Public Schools, asked Community Promise to teach micro-financing in the some of the district’s upper-elementary grades, so Houston will also be teaching children about money, budgeting and financial planning.

“We are currently in the planning stages for providing financial education at the Washington Elementary School and the Douglass Community Center,” Houston says.

Houston is also working with the credit union’s board on future expansion of Community Promise to the Northside and Eastside neighborhoods. “This is our 20-year plan,” he says.

Many of Community Promise’s customers struggle financially, Houston says, and need short-term loans for house repairs and various family emergencies. Community Promise allows customers up to six months to repay these loans, while other financial services, such as payday lenders, can require repayment in one to three weeks.

“When people come in and sign up to be members and we are able to help them, they thank us profusely and tell us we really helped them,” Houston says. “These are the kinds of things that bring me much satisfaction.” w w w.encorekalamazoo.com | 21

Still a spiritual guide Marianne Novak Houston was 18 when she entered the Sisters of Loretto convent in 1953.

“I was a very active, noisy girl in those days,” Houston says. “The first time I visited the motherhouse, I felt very drawn to the quiet there. A feeling came over me that this was what I was looking for.”

As a sister, Houston became a talented teacher and was sent to the Lumen Vitae Catechetical Institute in Brussels, Belgium, to study theology and religious teaching. She subsequently taught at Webster University and Kenrick School of Theology, in St. Louis, and began work on a doctorate in anthropology at Columbia University, in New York.

But at age 31, Houston had a change of heart: She wanted to be married and have a family.

“The sisters, though sad, were completely understanding,” Houston says.

Houston moved in with her younger sister’s family in Madison, Wisconsin, where she worked at the University of Wisconsin Medical School and met her husband, Jim, to whom she has been married for 47 years.

Jim and Marianne moved to Kalamazoo, and Marianne worked in Vicksburg Community Schools for nearly 29 years as a teacher, administrator, consultant and facilitator while also raising two sons. She says those years helped her hone her skills in organization, patience, humility and appreciation for individual gifts, But a desire to help people be in touch with their spiritual lives was still there. The perfect opportunity to pair her desire and educational expertise came in 1994. The Fetzer Institute was working with Parker J. Palmer on developing a long-term project to aid in the “spiritual formation of teachers.”

Houston joined Palmer and several other consultants in developing the Courage to Teach (CTT) program. The program offered educators retreats where they could work on their personal and professional development and renew their inner lives. The program has expanded to serve educators, health care professionals, ministers and other community leaders and has been renamed Courage and Renewal.

22 | ENCORE FEBRUARY 2016

Courage and Renewal retreats are spiritual in nature, though not partial to any religious tradition. Participants are invited into a quiet setting with time for reflection and inner work. Houston has led Courage and Renewal retreats in Australia, Singapore, Costa Rica, Canada and Haiti and across the U.S..

"When we first began our work, we shied away from using the word ‘spiritual’ because it was too ‘out there,’” Houston says. “But when Educational Leadership, a leading education journal, asked for a submission of articles on the subject of spirituality and education in 1998, the editor reported that they received more article submissions on this theme than any other in their history. That’s when we knew we were onto something important."

A former nun and teacher, Marianne Houston combines both of these experiences in her work today.

Houston also facilitates other retreats, including “Living from Within: Journeying Toward an Undivided Life” and the “Courage to Lead” retreat series at Transformations Spirituality Center.

Leading spiritual retreats for educators and others has “truly been an extension of what I was prepared for as a sister,” Houston says. “The sisters sent me to Brussels so that I could be a spiritual director for new sisters and be a teacher of teachers. Through Courage to Teach, that's just what I'm doing.

“I left the Loretto sisters, but Loretto never left me.”

Building community through fitness Ken Dettloff grew up in a blue-collar neighborhood on Detroit’s east side where the houses were close together, the streets were narrow and neighbors talked to each other on a daily basis.

“In my neighborhood, you could walk down the street from one corner to another and hear Tiger baseball on the radio coming out of each house without missing a play,” Dettloff says. “You could hear your next door neighbors’ conversations inside their house. But you felt safe because someone was always around. You also watched yourself because if you got into trouble, your mother would get a phone call about you. We’ve lost so much of that.”

As a result of this childhood experience, Dettloff wanted to build communities and earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in community planning from Wayne State University. His first job out of college was an urban renewal project with the Detroit Housing Commission. He went on to work as an urban planning consultant for more than 40 years in Detroit and Toledo. He came to Kalamazoo in 1978 to work for the former Wilkins & Wheaton Engineering Co. and later became a partner in the Kalamazoo office of McKenna Associate, a planning and design firm. (continued on page 42) Former urban planner Ken Detloff is now a personal trainer and teaches fitness courses, such as this kettlebell class at the YMCA.

Nonprofit Urges Seniors to Embrace Action, Improve Society by

ROBERT M. WEIR

“Second acts for the greater good,” says the banner headline at Encore.org, a San Franciscobased nonprofit that is “building a movement to tap the skills and experience of those in midlife and beyond to improve communities and the world.”

The organization claims that with 10,000 baby boomers turning 65 every day, people could easily view America’s aging society as a problem — or as a solution. “Those in and beyond midlife represent a powerful source of talent with the accumulated skills, experience, and wisdom to tackle some of society’s most urgent challenges,” says Encore.org.

The organization espouses “embracing this unique opportunity” and “creating a better future for generations to come.”

This paradigm shift, Encore.org says, requires that we redefine retirement not as “freedom from work” but as “a new life stage that offers freedom to work and to contribute in new ways — and to new ends.”

Encore.org promotes this alternative perspective via communication and networking. People seeking to contribute are connected with leaders in various sectors and programs that share and showcase the Encore.org vision.

With the intent of making a social impact, experienced adults address issues such as poverty, human rights, health, education, social justice and environmental protection in order to meet the ultimate goal of improving the lives and prospects of future generations.

Encore.org, originally called Civic Ventures, was founded in 1997 by social innovator and writer Marc Freedman. In 2014, the World Economic Forum and the Schwab Foundation recognized Freedman as Social Entrepreneur of the Year. He is the author of numerous articles and four books. His latest book is The Big Shift: Navigating the New Stage Beyond Midlife.

One of Freedman’s major accomplishments is the establishment of Experience Corps, now AARP Experience Corp, which has mobilized thousands of individuals over age 50 to improve the school performance and prospects of low-income elementary school students in 22 U.S. cities.

Encore.org asks Americans — regardless of the number of years they have lived — to shift their views on “retirement” away from thinking of it as a time of reduced, ineffective activity. As Freedman wrote in the Wall Street Journal on Jan. 23, 2015, “Embrace action … (and) get out into the world.” w w w.encorekalamazoo.com | 23

M aking a M akerspace Creating a space for innovation and invention in Kalamazoo

A

few years ago Al Holloway came across a copy of MAKE: magazine, a publication featuring projects as diverse as creating animatronic crafts to building tables with two-by-fours, and thought, “I want to do all these things!” The magazine was the Kalamazoo man’s first encounter with the concept of a “makerspace” — a community site furnished with the equipment, resources and collective knowledge to help innovators, tinkerers and others tackle creative projects.

Now Holloway, who works as the manager of technical resources at the Air Zoo, is the president of the Kalamazoo Innovation Initiative (KII), a nonprofit created in May with the encouragement of Kalamazoo Mayor Bobby Hopewell and with the mission of opening a makerspace by the end of 2016.

24 | ENCORE FEBRUARY 2016

If activity in Grand Rapids, Ann Arbor and Detroit is any indication, Kalamazoo is due for a makerspace. Grand Rapids has two makerspaces: GR Makers, which boasts an 8,000-square-foot facility near downtown and the slogan “It’s co-working with toys,” and The Geek Group, which has a 43,000-square-foot facility and serves as a science center, makerspace and media company providing instructional videos online.

Ann Arbor-area residents have access to Makerworks, a 14,000-square-foot facility with tools and education in metal, electrical circuits, woodworking and crafts such as sewing, embroidery and fiber arts. The area also has another makerspace, All Hands Active, as well as the Ann Arbor District Library’s Secret Lab, created in partnership with the University of Michigan for children ages 6 and older.

Doug Coombe KARA NORMAN

Detroit has several makerspaces, including Mt. Elliott Makerspace, TechShop Detroit, OmniCoreDetroit, the HYPE Makerspace within the Detroit Public Library’s teen center, and i3, which bills itself as the area’s largest community-run DIY (do-ityourself) workshop.

And then there are annual Mini Maker Faires — such as the one held in Grand Rapids or Maker Faire Detroit, hosted by The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn — that feature hundreds of makers and their wares, ideas, inventions and solutions, from flame shooters to solar-powered mechanical sculptures to bikes that look like cupcakes.

With more than 120 community-supported Mini Maker Faires in the United States and worldwide, according to Makerfaire.com, it’s safe to say the maker movement is having its day.

With equipment and expertise to share, the All Hands Active makerspace in Ann Arbor serves tinkerers of all ages.

Making a makerspace But what exactly makes a makerspace?

“When people think of a makerspace, a lot of times they think of a ‘FabLab’ with 3D printers, laser printers, vinyl cutters and so on,” Holloway says. “There are different types.”

Makerspaces are generally supported by memberships — people join and pay a monthly or an annual fee to have access to equipment, resources and like-minded individuals with knowledge and expertise.

Most are run by nonprofit organizations and supported by membership fees and donations, and many teach technical skills. However, some Dan Cunningham

story by

w w w.encorekalamazoo.com | 25

for-profit makerspaces also exist, such as the California-based franchise TechShop.

As Holloway sits with two other KII board members, Amy Braat and Jason Preuss, they discuss the KII’s plans to create a Kalamazoo makerspace. Although they decline to give a figure for what it would take to start a makerspace, they describe their desired facility as one that would accommodate metalwork, woodwork, fiber arts and maybe even a kitchen.

“Sometimes you just want to make something big, but you live in an apartment,” says Preuss, who works as a Web development specialist at the W.E. UpJohn Institute for Employment Research. “You can’t bring a long-arm quilter into an apartment.”

Holloway says the term “maker” is meant to be broad. “We know people who do all kinds of things — weave, knit, quilt, spin yarn and weld,” Holloway says. Many of those people are members of the Kalamazoo Makers Guild, an organization founded by Kevin Wixson in 2011 that now has more than 250 members. Since its inception, the Kalamazoo Makers Guild has met monthly, most recently in space provided by the Air Zoo, where members show off their work, share ideas and network with other people who love to craft things with their own hands.

In fact, many of those behind the KII are members of the Kalamazoo Makers Guild, including Holloway, who was involved with the guild when Mayor Hopewell returned from a White House-sponsored Maker Faire in Washington, D.C., and contacted him and Wixson about starting a makerspace in Kalamazoo.

“I was first exposed to makerspaces four years ago and I knew we should have one of these in Kalamazoo,” says Hopewell. “In 2014, I went to the White House Maker Faire and joined the Mayors Maker Challenge to take on the mission of enabling creativity, ideation and innovation in our cities. When I came back, I brought some people together to discuss it and discovered that Kalamazoo already had a maker movement, but it was still trying to find its place.”

Accessibilty is key

Hopewell was “all fired up about the possibility of a makerspace in Kalamazoo,” Holloway says, and perhaps rightly so. In an April article titled “How Makerspaces Help Local Economies,” The Atlantic reported that the “so-called ‘maker movement’ is arguably a big and important development in the American economy.”

That article and a 2012 story in The Atlantic, “Mr. China Comes to America,” reveal that the explosion of the availability of computercompliant tools such as 3D printers in the United States affects more than just our artistic identities. It is shifting our cultural relationship with manufacturing.

“The tools to create enterprises — and especially physical products — have become accessible to just about anyone,” John Tierney wrote in “How Makerspaces Help Local Economies.” Quoting the CEO of The Grommet, a company that launches maker products, Tierney wrote, “And that's changing how companies are getting formed.”

“There’s always a pendulum swinging,” Preuss says. “For awhile, you did not want to get involved with manufacturing. The party line was, ‘You need to go to college, get a four-year degree and become an accountant.’”

Jason Preuss, top, is a member of Kalamazoo Innovation Initiative and a maker with experience using 3D printers in his art. At right: an elaborate resin clock created

by Preuss with one of those printers. Other items he’s crafted can be seen on the opposite page.

26 | ENCORE FEBRUARY 2016

But not everyone’s ability aligns with accounting. Some people are born to make stuff.

The push for people to attend college has created a shortage of skills in fields that don’t require a four-year degree, Holloway says.

Welders, electricians and HVAC workers need training courses, and those courses are becoming less and less available, he says.

“All these things that we take for granted, like heating and cooling systems, someone has to install and maintain them,” he says.

Letting kids tinker

One of the big aims of creating a Kalamazoo makerspace, Holloway says, is to show kids legitimate career paths, jobs that are highly skilled and well compensated.

Toward that end, the Air Zoo’s new strategic plan includes creating a “tinkering space,” a sort of makerspace for children.

Air Zoo President and CEO Troy Thrash, who previously worked with a maker group in Allentown, Pennsylvania, when he was executive director of the Da Vinci Science Center there, says if the Air Zoo’s tinkering space is a success, it’s a natural leap for those kids to become part of a makerspace when they are older.

“We need to create opportunities for kids to get the experience so many of us had when we were young to build things and work with our hands,” says Thrash, adding that the Air Zoo is moving toward educational programming to boost technical knowledge and position kids for careers not only in aerospace but also in manufacturing or health care.

This educational component also happens to be one of KII’s core missions. Preuss says a makerspace can be a community classroom, especially for students in the Kalamazoo Regional Education Service Agency’s Education for Employment program.

“KRESA’s Education for Employment program is designed so high school students can see what careers are all about. It gets pretty close to the action sometimes,” says Preuss, adding that a makerspace would be another place for students to explore potential careers.

Holloway already knows about this program from experience. He teaches an Introduction to Aviation class at the Air Zoo through Education for Employment. In Holloway’s class, students go through a survey of potential careers in aviation such as flight, maintenance, engineering and airport operations. They also take an online college course. If students start the program in their junior year of high school and complete two years in the aviation technology program, they can graduate from high school with nine college credits under their belt.

If that’s the direction KRESA’s program keeps going, Holloway says, a makerspace would be “beautifully positioned” to participate with the organization as a teaching partner.

Preuss agrees. “We’ve got a lot of smart people in Kalamazoo. A makerspace could bring them together and see what ideas they come up with.”

There’s also the hope that promising minds won’t need to leave Kalamazoo to do something cool. “You can do something cool right here,” Preuss says.

“Keep the talent here,” Holloway says.

“And develop the talent here, too,” Braat adds.

A longtime engineer who studied mechanical engineering at WMU, Braat says she is concerned about the lack of hands-on training in schools where woodshop, metalworking and welding programs have disappeared. “(Engineering) graduates are starting jobs never having built anything,” she says. “If you’ve never built anything, how are you supposed to design something? We want to give people real-world training so they have marketable skills to bring to the workplace.”

Braat is a program manager at Burke E. Porter Machinery, in Grand Rapids, and runs a side business on her property in Dorr that is basically a mini-makerspace. In addition to tools such as a laser engraver and 3D printer, she and her husband, Kevin, have computernumerically-controlled (CNC) machinery that uses computer instructions to cut materials. People hire the Braats to make devices for short-run manufacturing, and the two also do custom woodworking and other crafts.

One reason Braat joined the KII board was to motivate girls and women to think about engineering as a career.

“A lot of it comes down to exposure,” she says, noting children need be exposed to a wider variety of career options to know what options exist.

“It’s not even a matter of confidence,” Braat says, “just one of knowing your options. Kids say they want to be a doctor because they see it on TV, but there is so much more that you can do for a living. You don’t see engineering on TV, but it is actually very cool.”

Holloway agrees. “My dad had a toolbox in the garage, and we had full access to it,” he says. “We didn’t have to ask. We just went out there and took our bikes apart. It was trial and error.”

Preuss cites his own 11-year-old daughter as part of his inspiration to create a makerspace. “I don’t know what she’s going to do when she grows up,” he says, “but I want her to be exposed to the thinking ‘Hey, you have an idea? Well, you can make it.’”

So far, the makerspace that the KII is working toward is planned for members ages 18 and older. Children would be allowed to participate if accompanied by an adult member through family memberships, and there are plans for programs designed for youth groups such as Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts and technical education classes for high school students.

Overcoming obstacles

This isn’t the first time there’s been an effort to create a makerspace in Kalamazoo. In 2011, Second Wave Media reported that initial planning and facility leasing for a makerspace called Xipherspace was underway, but both Holloway and Preuss say they believe those efforts faded away. (Attempts by Encore to reach the principals

w w w.encorekalamazoo.com | 27

From left: Kalamazoo Innovation Initiative members Al Holloway, Jason Preuss and Amy Braat show some of the equipment donated for a makerspace in Kalamazoo.

involved in Xiphersphere were unsuccessful.) Last year Encore talked to Fido Motors owner and president Jeb Gast about his own plans for a makerspace in the old Star Brass Works foundry, at 1415 Fulford St., but so far the project, named Jericho, remains unveiled, suggesting there are complexities to getting these spaces from concept to reality.

Sometimes something as simple as choosing a name stalls an initiative. The KII first named its potential makerspace Space Station Kalamazoo, but, because of confusion with other establishments with a space theme, decided to give it a different name, which has yet to be decided. But the biggest obstacle in creating a makerspace is money.

“The obvious roadblock to a makerspace is funding,” Thrash says.

Determining the cost of creating a makerspace is hard to do. KII representatives declined to name a figure, saying that the cost depends on the location chosen for the space as well as what equipment is donated or bought. The Detroit Public Library’s HYPE Makerspace was created with a $30,000 grant and has an annual budget of $11,000 for staffing and maintenance and generally serves teens by providing electronics (soldering, arduino, raspberry pi), sewing, 3D printing, silk-screen printing, bike repair, paper crafts and general crafting.

On the flip side, in August, East Lansing Public Library officials discussed creating a permanent makerspace with its community’s Downtown Development Authority that had a startup cost of roughly $1 million.

Preuss says that's why collaboration is critical to creating a makerspace in Kalamazoo. “It’s a coordination issue,” he says. “You need a bunch of people to jump at the same time.”

KII members say plenty of local businesses are excited about the idea of a makerspace, but, when it comes to making a commitment, most businesses grow shy. “They’re inherently conservative,” Preuss says. “They say, ‘Get that thing built and we’ll be there.’ Or, ‘Show us business support and we’ll help you out.’”

Seeking local support

There has been some local industry support, however. Humphrey Industries donated some financing to the project, and Stryker donated a 3D printer. A family-owned jewelry shop donated all of

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its equipment when the shop closed, and the Air Zoo is storing the KII’s equipment until it finds a facility.

Funding to lease or buy a facility is the last piece to fall into place for the KII. Once the operation is established, the leaders say, they are confident that with revenue from individual memberships (priced at about $49 a month) and other forms of support, including student and corporate memberships, they will be able to keep the makerspace running.

“Once it’s built, it can be pretty easy to sustain. It’s just getting over that big first step,” Preuss says.

Currently under consideration are buildings in the Rivers Edge area, an up-and-coming part of downtown Kalamazoo that is easily accessible to people from all over the area.

But it takes time to find the right facility and create a makerspace.

Steve Teeri, an Ann Arbor librarian who was instrumental in bringing the Detroit Public Library’s teen HYPE Makerspace to fruition in 2012, says that it took 18 months of planning and obtaining a grant to get the makerspace from idea to reality.

When HYPE Makerspace finally opened, “the response from our teens was phenomenal,” Teeri says. “We had girls doing robotics and boys sewing, all without us trying to push them toward one activity or another.”

One girl, he says, sewed a denim vest for her cat and then 3D-printed a few nauticalthemed buttons to sew onto it. Victory for all!

(Except the cat.)

Hopewell says it’s not a question of if a makerspace will be created, but when. "I fully believe this is going to happen," he says. “It is taking a little longer than we hoped but it is getting very close.”

When it does, Holloway sees the makerspace as a connector to those people at Western Michigan University or Kalamazoo Valley Community College who are versed in job opportunities and the crafting of careers.

If someone invents a new device and wants to patent it, for instance, Holloway wants to be able to direct that person to someone in the community who understands intellectual property rights.

“The high-level vision of this place is a focal point,” he says. “Someone could make the next big thing, and it could be built right here in Kalamazoo.”

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FEB 6 - Faith’s Nuggets FEB 20 - Sorry Wrong Number MAR 5 - Sherlock Holmes and A Case of Identity MAR 19 - Ozma of Oz (2 part Presentation)

Back in the ‘Golden Age” of radio, weekly radio programs brought the young and old to their living rooms to listen to adventurous, mysterious and comical tales.

Dedicated to promoting this rich history, All Ears Theatre performs newly scripted radio programs for live audiences, complete with old school sound effects, from January through May. Shows are later broadcast on 102.1 WMUK-FM. Performances are at 6:00 pm at the First Baptist Church and are FREE to the public.

Funding provided by For a complete schedule of shows, visit KalamazooArts.org

Brian Powers w w w.encorekalamazoo.com | 29

ARTS ENCORE

Eclectic & Electric

Electric Jug Band members as varied as the band’s music KARA NORMAN

Mark Bugnaski

by

Brian Powers

C

ombine a couple of saxophones, a pair of spoons and a heavymetal drummer covering Greatful Dead songs and what do you get?

Electric Jug Band, a Kalamazoo jam band whose members range in age from 31 to 62 and whose day jobs range from mechanic to cook.

The one thing they have in common, however: They are ordinary guys who love music so much they will organize their lives around being able to play it.

“Music is my thing,” says saxophonist and electric wind instrument player Jay Hunt, 45, a longtime Kalamazoo resident. “I don’t go fishing. I don’t play golf. I play music.”

30 | ENCORE FEBRUARY 2016

Clockwise from above: Guitarist Mike Grammes, above, plays as Matt Fisher watches; Ted McNett plays washtub bass; and the band’s drummer, Randy Ferguson, in action.

Neil Young croons through the speakers at Brite Eyes Brewing Co. as members of Electric Jug Band sit around a table talking about the evolution of the band, which was formed in 2008. They crack jokes, shout directions and switch seats to get the right arrangement — the quiet voices need to be closer to the interviewer’s mic, the louder ones across the table.

ENCORE ARTS

Every member of the band except drummer Randy Ferguson sports some variation of facial hair, and the group seems to have no clear leader until guitarist and singer Bryan Withers talks about founding the band shortly before he met Vicksburg native and retired school maintenance worker Ted McNett.

“I was at the Vicksburg Old Car Show when I heard someone playing inside Aaron’s Music Service (a stringed instrument store in Vicksburg),” says Withers, 45. He wandered into the shop and saw McNett playing a washtub bass.

It was the first time Withers had seen a real washtub bass, an instrument with a single string and a metal washtub that is popular in American folk music. “Ted told me, ‘I make and sell these for a hundred bucks,’” Withers says. “I got his number to buy one and said, ‘Hey, you should come play with my band.’”

Withers had formed Electric Jug Band with some other musicians a few months earlier.

The band had a gig at Bell’s Eccentric Café for a music festival, and Withers invited McNett to join them. “I told Ted to show up and he did,” Withers says.

At the mention of Bell’s, the band members explode into simultaneous conversations.

Many of them played the stage that same day in different groups. As with many bands, members of Electric Jug Band have come and gone and come back again through the years.

The band’s electric bassist and long-haired singer, Matt Fisher, 45, originally played with Withers in a different band in 2008 before Withers formed Electric Jug Band. Fisher had left for another project but not before writing some songs with Withers. He returned to the band in 2011.

McNett, 62, has been playing with Electric Jug Band since that 2008 gig at Bell’s and is an integral part of the band’s sound, playing spoons, washboard and other popular jugband devices — basically anything lying around the house that can be turned into an instrument. McNett even made the electric washtub bass that he plugs in for shows.

Ferguson, who joined the band in 2014, says he played drums in heavy-metal bands for 20

years before stumbling into jam bands. Because he has a smile that makes his face beatific, it’s hard to imagine the 46-year old plumber wailing on a kit in a metal band, but when he mentions learning a new style, everyone is quick to agree: Ferguson’s playing has changed a lot since he took up with them in 2014.

“It was tough at first. Playing slower is actually a lot harder than playing fast. Playing quieter is hard, too,” he says and laughs. “I’m still learning that one.”

Electric Jug Band plays in venues such as South Haven’s Black River Tavern and Holland’s Itty Bitty Bar and at festivals such as Hoodilidoo in Bangor and the twice-yearly Bus Stop Festival that McNett hosts on his property in Vicksburg. Twice a year the band plays in Kalamazoo, sometimes at Louie’s Trophy House Grill, bringing a sound they call “Americana mixed with rockabilly funk” and splitting the paycheck five or six ways.

“When you look out there and see folks dancing and enjoying themselves, that’s a lot of pay in itself,” Hunt says.

“Plus, it charges the band,” Withers says.

“It gives us energy. That’s when the magic happens.”

Saxophonist Mike Grammes, who has been with Electric Jug Band since 2009, says playing music is similar to speaking a language. “A jam band is in a conversation with the audience,” he says, “tossing things back and forth.”

In the case of Electric Jug Band, what it tosses to audiences are covers of songs by classic roots artists like Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson and jam-band legends The Grateful Dead and Phish. The band also plays original songs composed by Withers. When asked about musical influences, the band members name artists from Bonnie Raitt to Prince.

Grammes, however, admits his musical influences were a bit different: The 31-year old got into music watching The Muppets as a kid. He thought the sax player Zoot “was a god” and wanted to be like him.

Fisher notes that he got hooked on performing music the first time people

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ARTS ENCORE

Electric Jug Band Band members are, clockwise from top left: Randy Ferguson, drums Matt Fisher, bass and vocals Ted McNett, washtub bass, spoons Bryan Withers, lead guitar and vocals

Brian Powers

Mike Grammes, saxophone, electronic wind instruments and guitar

danced when he played. “That became my greatest addiction,” he admits.

Hunt, who joined the band in 2015, agrees. He grew up listening to his dad, Bob Hunt (a Kalamazoo musician who now plays with the Battle Creek ensemble Martila Sanders & Gee-Q), play the saxophone and synthophone. Then Hunt took band in high school “when it wasn’t cool to take band.”

Hunt, who is the newest member of Electric Jug Band, may also be the most taciturn.

Earlier, when Hunt said he plays music instead of going fishing, Withers jumped in

32 | ENCORE FEBRUARY 2016

to say, “That was the whole philosophy at the beginning of EJB. I’d say to the guys, ‘Some dudes go bowling or hunting. We play music.’”

The metaphor of music as hobby outgrows itself quickly, though. Grammes, a cook at The Park Club in downtown Kalamazoo, arranges his schedule so he can work as little as possible, in order to “ride the music thing as far as it can go,” he says. Other than the retired McNett, everyone in the band works at other jobs — Withers is also a cook at The Park Club and a dad raising two kids, ages 5 and 7. Ferguson is a plumber who has a

Jay Hunt (not pictured), saxophone and synthophone

high-schooler at home. Fisher does home construction and has a teenage daughter.

Hunt is a mechanic with two kids. But all of them say that if they could, they would make music their full-time job in a heartbeat.

“When I was growing up in the ’70s, KISS was huge,” Ferguson says. “I thought they were the coolest thing ever. When I heard them, I just had to be a rocker. I dragged out pots and pans and started banging on them.

I was 10. My parents were like, ‘OK, we better get this kid some lessons.’”

“KISS is still the coolest thing ever,” Hunt says.

ENCORE ARTS

Preserving Nature on the Page

Book captures ‘endangered landscapes’ drawn by California artist MARIE LEE

Courtesy

by

W

hen Kalamazoo artist Suzanne Siegel was a struggling California artist in the early 1970s, her schoolmate and friend Alan Freeman was often there to help her out. He would share encouragement, exhibit space and sometimes a little money to tide her over.

Now, 40 years later, Siegel has returned the favor by helping Freeman, a prolific artist himself, bring years of his pencil and penand-ink drawings to light by publishing them in a new book, The Landscape Drawings of Alan L. Freeman.

The self-published book is a collection of drawings Freeman created over four decades. Siegel says it took 35 years to convince Freeman to let her put the book together.

“Alan made the pen-and-inks as a basis for other works like his watercolor paintings, but he never thought these drawings were publishable in their own right,” Siegel says. “But I felt that the world should see the beauty of these works.”

California Coastal View, Alan Freeman, 1997, pencil, ink and watercolor.

The book features more than 140 of Freeman’s drawings as well as five watercolor paintings. Freeman lives and works in Lompoc, California, and is a well-known artist in that area. Siegel met Freeman when they were both art students at Santa Barbara City College, where Freeman studied with Southern California painter Robert Frame.

Freeman continued as Frame’s studio assistant for 25 years but also worked as a carpenter in the construction and surfboard industries until he was able to support himself as a full-time artist. As an artist, Freeman has worked in a variety of media, including sculpture, ceramics, woodcarving, pastels, watercolors and oils, and his work is in a number of collections in his home region and nationally.

Siegel says one of the reasons she believed Freeman’s pen-and-ink drawings should be shared with a wider audience is that many of them capture landscapes that no longer exist.

w w w.encorekalamazoo.com | 33

ARTS ENCORE “A lot of his scenes are of endangered landscapes, from the Yukon to Santa Fe,” she says. “In his drawing Looking South to Sands, Alan captured a New Mexico landscape before it was cleared to build a Hyatt Hotel, and that drawing now stands as a permanent record of what that area looked like in its natural state.”

Freeman is a “plein air” artist who has logged thousands of miles hiking along ocean bluffs and backcountry trails carrying his art supplies to capture scenes on-site. Siegel says Freeman has a penchant for roaming onto private property to get just the right perspective of a scene and has, more than once, ended up on the unfriendly end of a shotgun.

“He can recount many instances where showing an irate rancher or forest ranger his sketchbook of drawings would be enough to get him out of a scrape,” Siegel says. “But he saw ignoring ‘No Trespassing’ signs as a necessary risk for producing his life’s work.”

Health reasons have caused the 67-year-old Freeman to slow down in his artistic endeavors during the past few years, finally allowing him time to work with Siegel to produce the book. It took the better part of a year, and Siegel spent several weeks with Freeman in California going through his drawings, photographing them and preparing the publication for print.

Among Freeman’s pencil and pen-and-ink drawings included in the book are, clockwise from top right, Homestead View of Santa Barbara Channel, 1990; Old Dawson, Business Section (Ghost Town), 1989; and Big Bath Falls Big Sur, 1989.

34 | ENCORE FEBRUARY 2016

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The book is actually the second collection of Freeman’s works that Siegel has compiled.

The first, California Landscapes in Watercolor, is a collection of Freeman’s watercolor paintings that was published in 2010. Siegel says the books have never been intended as commercial enterprises but as more of lasting artifacts of Freeman’s work.

“Alan’s work appears in collections regionally and nationally, but it should be something seen by others,” Siegel says, “especially as it records many endangered landscapes as an eloquent call for preservation.”

The Landscape Drawings of Alan L. Freeman is available locally at The Nature Connection and Michigan News Agency. Prints from the book can be seen at Martell’s, 3501 Greenleaf Blvd., in Parkview Hills, through March.

w w w.encorekalamazoo.com | 35

PERFORMING ARTS THEATER Plays A Soldier's Play — A murder mystery about an army sergeant and his all-black company, 7:30 p.m. Feb. 5–6 & 11–13; 2 p.m. Feb. 7 & 14, Shaw Theatre, WMU, 387-3220.

Other Desert Cities — The liberal daughter of a conservative family dredges up painful family history, 8 p.m. Feb. 5–6, 12–13 & 19–20; 2 p.m.

Feb. 7 & 14; 7:30 p.m. Feb. 11 & 18, Farmers Alley Theatre, 221 Farmers Alley, 343-2727.

Faith's Nuggets — All Ears Theatre presentation, 6 p.m. Feb. 6, First Baptist Church, 315 W. Michigan Ave., 342-5059.

Family Crimes — A one-act play about three generations of Latina women with long-held secrets, 7:30 p.m. Feb. 11, 8 p.m. Feb. 12 & 13, 2 p.m. Feb. 14, Dungeon Theatre, Kalamazoo College, 129 Thompson St., 337-7130.

Steel Magnolias — Friendship carries Southern women through personal triumphs and tragedies, 7:30 p.m. Feb. 19–20, 25–27 & March 4–5; 2 p.m. Feb. 28, Civic Theatre, 329 S. Park St., 343-1313.

Sorry Wrong Number — All Ears Theatre presentation, 6 p.m. Feb. 20, First Baptist Church, 342-5059.

Bad Jews — A contemporary comedy/drama about Jewish American college students who meet for their grandfather's funeral, 7:30 p.m.

Feb. 25, 8 p.m. Feb. 26 & 27, 2 p.m. Feb. 28, Dungeon Theatre, Kalamazoo College, 3377130.

Up the English — A collection of British comedy favorites, 8 p.m. Feb. 26–27, March 4–5, 11–12 & 18–19, New Vic Theatre, 134 E. Vine St., 3813328.

Musicals Hands on a Hardbody — "Bluesy country rock" musical about the American Dream, 7:30 p.m.

Feb. 4–6 & 12–13, 2 p.m. Feb. 7, Parish Theatre, 405 W. Lovell St., 343-1313.

Girls Night: The Musical — A benefit honoring those affected by breast cancer, 6:30 p.m. silent auction, 8:30 p.m. performance, Feb. 6, State Theatre, 404 S. Burdick St., 345-6500.

Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson — A fast-paced irreverent rock musical about the U.S. and its leaders, 7:30 p.m. Feb. 12–13, 18–20 & 25–27; 36 | ENCORE FEBRUARY 2016

2 p.m. Feb. 14 & 21, York Arena Theatre, WMU, 387-6222.

Super Happy Funtime Burlesque — Comedy burlesque musical theater featuring live band playing original music, 9:30 p.m. Feb. 27, Bell's Eccentric Café, 355 E. Kalamazoo Ave., 3822332.

Chicago — This Broadway musical presents a universal tale of fame, fortune and "all that jazz," 7:30 p.m. Feb. 29 & March 1, Miller Auditorium, WMU, 387-2300.

MUSIC Bands & Solo Artists Richard Marx: An Acoustic Solo — Grammy winner and pop-rock singer/songwriter, 7 p.m.

Feb. 5, State Theatre, 404 S. Burdick St., 3456500.

Cornmeal — Chicago roots and bluegrass band, 9 p.m. Feb. 5, Bell's Eccentric Café, 355 E. Kalamazoo Ave., 382-2332.

The Mushmen — Kalamazoo ska band, 9 p.m.

Feb. 6, Bell's Eccentric Café, 382-2332.

All-Star Blues Bash — Featuring Bobby Rush, Joe Louis Walker, Wayne Baker Brooks and Shawn Holt, 8:30 p.m. Feb. 12, State Theatre, 345-6500.

MNOE + Lauren Deming — A cross-genre ensemble featuring Detroit singer/songwriter, 9 p.m. Feb. 12, Bell's Eccentric Café, 382-2332.

Lover's Extravaganza: Musiq Soulchild — The soul artist blends R&B, soul, rock, blues, jazz and hip-hop, 8:30 p.m. Feb. 13, State Theatre, 345-6500.

Young Heavy Souls Winter Throwdown — Detroit electronic/hip-hop, 9 p.m. Feb. 13, Bell's Eccentric Café, 382-2332.

Kalamazoo Male Chorus Presents a "Bellentine" Affair — The chorus performs with soloists and Kalamazoo-area guest musicians in this Valentine’s Day concert, 5 p.m. Feb. 14, Bell's Eccentric Café, 382-2332.

Home Free — Country vocal quintet that won NBC's The Sing-Off, 7:30 p.m. Feb. 14, State Theatre, 345-6500.

Andy Frasco & the U.N. — California singer/ songwriter and his band, 9 p.m. Feb. 20, Bell's Eccentric Café, 382-2332.

Kalamazoo Academy of Rock Annual Benefit — Six bands of young musicians raise money for the Gibson smokestack reconstruction, 12:30 p.m. Feb. 21, Bell's Eccentric Café, 382-2332.

Kacey Musgraves Country & Western Rhinestone Revue — Grammy and CMA awardwinning country singer and songwriter, 7:30 p.m. Feb. 25, State Theatre, 345-6500.

Buckwheat Zydeco — Stanley "Buckwheat" Dural Jr. performs Louisiana's zydeco music, 8:30 p.m. Feb. 26, Bell's Eccentric Café, 3822332.

Orchestra, Chamber, Jazz, Vocal & More Kalamazoo Bach Festival Society High School Choral Festival — Area high school choirs perform with guest clinician Eugene Rogers, 9:10 a.m.–1:30 p.m. Feb. 3 & 4, Light Fine Arts Building, Kalamazoo College, 337-7407.

Western Wind Quintet — Presented by WMU School of Music's Bullock Performance Institute, 7:30 p.m. Feb. 3, Dalton Center Recital Hall, WMU, 387-4667.

University Jazz Orchestra and Jazz Lab Band — 7:30 p.m. Feb. 4, Dalton Center Recital Hall, WMU, 387-4667.

Cooper’s Glen Music Festival — Great Lakes Acoustic Music Association presents performances and workshops, jams and a guitar raffle, 7–11:45 p.m. Feb. 5–6, Radisson Plaza Hotel, 100 W. Michigan Ave., 459-5144.

University Symphony Orchestra — 3 p.m. Feb. 7, Miller Auditorium, WMU, 387-2300.

Gilmore Rising Star Igor Levit — The pianist performs works by Bach, Schubert, Beethoven and Prokofiev, 4 p.m. Feb. 7, Wellspring Theater, Epic Center, 359 S. Kalamazoo Mall, 342-1166.

Western Winds — 7:30 p.m. Feb. 9, Dalton Center Recital Hall, WMU, 387-4667.

Guest Artist Recital: Sato Michiyoshi, Shamisen — Presented in collaboration with WMU's Soga Japan Center, 7:30 p.m. Feb. 11, Dalton Center Lecture Hall, WMU, 387-4667.

Love Notes: A Valentine Cabaret — Performance by the Kalamazoo Children's Chorus, 7 p.m.

Feb. 12, Epic Theatre, 359 S. Kalamazoo Mall, 547-7183.

Gold Company: Anything You Can Sing, We Can Swing Better — WMU vocal jazz group, 2 & 8 p.m. Feb. 13, Miller Auditorium, WMU, 3872300.

Voice Faculty Showcase — Presented by WMU School of Music's Bullock Performance Institute, 7:30 p.m. Feb. 17, Dalton Center Recital Hall, WMU, 387-4667.

Beethoven & Nielsen — Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra concert, featuring principal flutist Yukie Ota, and Stulberg gold medalist Yaegy Park on violin, 8 p.m. Feb. 19, Miller Auditorium, WMU, 387-2300.

Symphonic Band Concert — 8 p.m. Feb. 19, Dalton Theatre, Kalamazoo College, 337-7047.

Voces8 — Kalamazoo Bach Festival presents this British vocal ensemble, 7:30 p.m. Feb. 20, Kalamazoo Central High School, 2432 N. Drake Road, 337-7407.

University Symphonic Band — 3 p.m. Feb. 21, Miller Auditorium, WMU, 387-2300.

The World at War: Love from Home — The Kalamazoo Singers honor veterans, 3 p.m. Feb. 21, Chapel Hill United Methodist Church, 7028 Oakland Drive, Portage, 373-1769.

Kalamazoo Junior Symphony Orchestra Concert: Precosity — 2015 Stulberg bronze medalist Hae Sue Lee performs the Walton Viola Concerto, 4 p.m. Feb. 21, Chenery Auditorium, 714 S. Westnedge Ave., 349-7557.

University Concert Band — 7:30 p.m. Feb. 22, Miller Auditorium, WMU, 387-2300.

Time for Three — The string trio performs jazz, bluegrass, classical and pop, 8 p.m. Feb. 26, Dalton Center Recital Hall, WMU, 382-7774.

A Renaissance Faire — Kalamazoo Concert Band performance, 7:30 p.m. Feb. 27, Chenery Auditorium, 337-0440.

Al Jarreau in Symphony — The pop, rock and R&B singer performs with the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra, 8 p.m. Feb. 27, Miller Auditorium, WMU, 387-2300.

Choral Showcase — WMU University Chorale, Cantus Femina and Collegiate Singers, 8 p.m.

Feb. 27, Dalton Center Recital Hall, WMU, 3874667.

DANCE I Am Going to Dance for You Now — A collaborative dance concert featuring performances by Wellspring/Cori Terry & Dancers and other artists, 8 p.m. Feb. 27, Wellspring Theater, Epic Center, 359 S. Kalamazoo Mall, 342-4354.

MISCELLANEOUS Golden Dragon Acrobats Present Cirque Ziva — Centuries-old Chinese art blends with today's technology, 8 p.m. Feb. 20, Miller Auditorium, WMU, 387-2300.

VISUAL ARTS Kalamazoo Institute of Arts 314 S. Park St., 349-7775 Jiha Moon: Double Welcome, Most Everyone's Mad Here — Art that incorporates pop culture,

technology, racial assumptions and folklore, through March 6.

Suspended! Sculpture from ArtPrize 2015 — Sculpture that hangs from the ceiling, through March 13.

Colour Correction: British and American Screenprints, 1967–75 — Screenprints by 32 artists, through March 27.

ARTbreak — A weekly program about art, artists and exhibitions: Inventing the Art Museum, a talk by Pat Norris, Feb. 2; El Anatsui and Yinka Shonibare MBE, video, Feb. 9; Establishing a Second Space: Richard Hunt & Michigan, a talk by Tami Miller, Feb. 16; Charles Sheeler: An American's Response to the Challenge of Cubism, a talk by Jack Urban, Feb. 23; all sessions begin at noon, KIA Auditorium.

Presenting great musicians.

Enriching our community.

Performance: Common Threads — Poetry and music in a call-and-response interaction about art and race, 6:30 p.m. Feb. 4.

Figure and Ground: Art and its Architecture Context — Art League lecture by J. Fiona Ragheb, 10 a.m. Feb. 10.

KIA Film Series — Screening and discussion of Another Time and Reset, two films by Kalamazoo native Domonic Smith, 6:30 p.m.

Feb. 11.

Book Discussion: Strapless: John Singer Sargent and the Fall of Madame X — Discussion of this novel by Deborah Davis, 2 p.m. Feb. 17, KIA's Meader Fine Art Library, 585-9291.

Talk: Meander, Since You Can't See Much While Marching — Williams College art professor Mike Glier speaks about his retrospective exhibition at WMU's Richmond Center, 6:30 p.m. Feb. 18.

Time for Three February 26, 8 pm Dalton Center Recital Hall WMU Self-described as a “classically trained garage band,” this trio has a diverse repertoire in jazz, bluegrass, classical and even pop.

Talk: Royal Gold — Dr. Nii Quarcoopome speaks on African art and its influence on AfricanAmerican artists, 6:30 p.m. Feb. 25.

Richmond Center for Visual Arts Western Michigan University, 387-2436 NYPOP Emerging Curators Series III: Plain Sight — The New York Professional Outreach Program's exhibition of emerging and established New York City artists, through Feb. 5, Monroe-Brown Gallery.

Prints from the University Art Collection — Through Feb. 5, Netzorg and Kerr Gallery.

Mike Glier: Meander, Since You Can't See Much While Marching — Feb. 18–March 24, MonroeBrown Gallery.

Paul R. Solomon: Boundaries of Eden — Feb. 18–April 21, Netzorg and Kerr Gallery.

Juilliard String Quartet JACOB & NAOMI STUCKI MEMORIAL CONCERT

March 18, 8 pm Stetson Chapel Kalamazoo College The “quintessential American string quartet” with a longstanding tradition of excellence.

fontanamusic.org 269.382.7774 w w w.encorekalamazoo.com | 37

EVENTS ENCORE Other Venues Art Hop — Local artists and musicians at various venues in Kalamazoo, 5–8 p.m. Feb. 5, 342-5059.

Annual Garage Sale Art Fair — Overstocks, seconds and leftover supplies, 9:30 a.m.–4 p.m. Feb. 27, Kalamazoo County Expo Center, garagesaleartfair.com.

LIBRARY & LITERARY EVENTS Kalamazoo Public Library Tabletop Games for Adults — Strategy, abstract, party, Euro, cooperative, card and word games, 5:30–7:30 p.m. Feb. 2, Washington Square Branch, 1244 Portage St., 553-7970.

First Saturday at KPL — Family event with stories, activities, guests and door prizes, 2–3:30 p.m. Feb. 6, Children's Room, Central Library, 315 S. Rose St., 553-7844.

Meet the Author: Sonya Hollins and Friends — The author reads from her new book, Benjamin Losford and His Handy Dandy Clippers, 6 p.m.

Feb. 9, Alma Powell Branch, 1000 W. Paterson Ave., 342-9837.

Powell Book Discussion Group — Share insights about Bad But Perfectly Good at It,

by Jasmine Williams, and Outlaw Chick, by Al Saadiq Banks, 6 p.m. Feb. 23, Barnabee Gallery, Alma Powell Branch, 553-7960; registration requested.

Zentangle Meditative Art — Create images by drawing structured patterns, 6 p.m. Feb. 23, Community Room, Washington Square Branch, 553-7970; registration required.

Women in Kalamazoo: Another Perspective — Lynn Houghton discusses women's contributions to the community's development, 7 p.m. Feb. 25, Van Deusen Room, Central Library, 553-7844.

Portage District Library 300 Library Lane, 329-4544 Science Fiction and Fantasy Discussion Group — Discussion of how magic is used in fantasy and media, 7 p.m. Feb. 1.

Friends of the Library Book Sale — 9 a.m.–3 p.m. Feb. 6.

Top Shelf Reads — A young professionals' book group discussion of In the Unlikely Event, by Judy Blume, 7 p.m. Feb. 8, Latitude 42 Brewing Co., 7842 Portage Road, 585-8711.

PDL Writer's Group — Focusing on fiction and creative nonfiction writing, 6 p.m. Feb. 11 & 25.

International Mystery Book Group — 7 p.m.

Feb. 11.

38 | ENCORE FEBRUARY 2016

Must Be 21+ Movieoke: Princess Bride — 1 p.m.

Feb. 13.

Open for Discussion — Discussion of The Boys in the Boat, by Daniel James Brown, 10:30 a.m.

Feb. 16.

Great Books Reading Group — 2 p.m. Feb. 21.

Must Be 21+: Canvases with Kara — Step-bystep instructions to paint a masterpiece, 7 p.m.

Feb. 22.

Fun With Felt: The Craft of Art With Felt — Learn felting basics, 2 p.m. Feb. 27.

Other Venues Parchment Book Club — Discussion of The Light Between the Oceans, by M.L. Stedman, 7 p.m. Feb. 1, Parchment Community Library, 401 S. Riverview Drive, 343-7747.

Theatre Kalamazoo/New Play Fest Featuring Adam Szymkowicz — Presented as part of the Gwen Frostic Reading Series, 7 p.m. Feb. 5, Epic Center, 359 S. Kalamazoo Mall, 387-2572.

Genre Gyration — Discussion of books from different genres, 7 p.m. Feb. 10, Parchment Community Library, 343-7747.

Adult Craft: Flower and Leaf Canvas — Paint a nature-inspired canvas, 5:30 p.m. Feb. 17, Comstock Township Library, 6130 King Highway, 345-0136; registration required.

Claire Vaye Watkins — The fiction writer appears in the Gwen Frostic Reading Series, 7 p.m. Feb. 18, Rooms 157–159, Bernhard Center, WMU, 387-2572.

Quiltfest — A showcase for local quilters, 9:30 a.m. Feb. 18, 10 a.m. Feb. 19 & 20, Comstock Township Library, 345-0136.

MUSEUMS Gilmore Car Museum 6865 Hickory Road, Hickory Corners, 671-5089 Gilmore Speaker Series — Lecture series featuring experts on various topics: Mustang's Role in Ford Performance History, John Clor, Feb. 7; The Rise and Fall of the Early Electric Car, D.E. Johnson, Feb. 14; Vintage Views Along Scenic M-22, Tom Wilson and Christine Byron, Feb. 21; Land Speed Records: A History, John McLellen, Feb. 28; all presentations begin at 3 p.m.

Kalamazoo Valley Museum 230 N. Rose St., 373-7990 Orion Nights — Find the stars within the constellations, 3 p.m. Tues. & Thurs., 2 p.m.

Sat., through March 12, Planetarium.

Kalamazoo Gals — Story of the women who built the legendary World War II-era Gibson guitars known as “Banners,” museum hours, through April 10.

Goose Bumps: The Science of Fear — An experiential and holistic view of fear science, through May 8.

Storytelling Festival: Stories Gone Wild — National storytellers and vendor fair, 10 a.m.–5 p.m. Feb. 5 & 6, with performances at 5:30 & 7 p.m. Feb. 5.

Museum Explorers: Kalamazoo's Talent — Featuring America's Got Talent semifinalist Benjamin Yonattan, 5–8 p.m. Feb. 12.

Sunday Series: Biracial Marriages: Narratives from Kalamazoo — Contemporary lived experiences of biracial marriages, 1:30 p.m.

Feb. 14.

Artifactory — Kalamazoo writers read poetry inspired by local history and/or items in the museum, 1:30 p.m. Feb. 28.

NATURE Kalamazoo Nature Center 7000 N. Westnedge Ave., 381-1574 Winter Sports Demo Day — Learn new ways to enjoy the outdoors, 2–4 p.m. Feb. 7.

Discover the Trout Run Trail — Explore the 0.4mile trail, 2 p.m. Feb. 14.

Conservation Celebration — Learn how to volunteer with KNC's conservation projects, 6–8 p.m. Feb. 16.

Owl Prowl: Great Horned Owls — Nighttime hike to listen for owl calls, 7 p.m. Feb. 18.

Boomers and Beyond: White-tailed Deer — Mark Mills from the DNR discusses deer population trends and deer interactions with humans, 11 a.m.–1 p.m. Feb. 23.

Owl Prowl: Barred Owls — Nighttime hike to listen for owl calls, 7 p.m. Feb. 25.

Owls of Michigan — Learn about owls and meet some that are captive, 2 p.m. Feb. 28.

Leap Day Hike — Celebrate Leap Day with a guided hike, 4 p.m. Feb. 29.

Pierce Cedar Creek Institute 701 W. Cloverdale Road, Hastings, 721-4190 Night Flight Images — Photography exhibit by Chris Neri and Nova Mackentley, 9 a.m.–5 p.m.

Mon.–Fri., through Feb. 27.

Lunch and Learn: Ancient Michigan — Matt Dykstra discusses how geological forces have shaped the landscape, 10 a.m.–1 p.m. Feb. 5; registration required.

Pottery Workshop — Create a little pot for small wildflowers, 1–4 p.m. Feb. 6 & 13.

Great Backyard Bird Count — A 1.5-mile hike to identify birds for monitoring bird populations, 9–11:30 a.m. Feb. 13.

February Brunch and Sled Dog Program — Annie Hammond of the Great Lakes Sled Dog Association shares racing experiences and demonstrates a run, 11:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. brunch, 12:15 p.m. program, Feb. 14.

Trails by Candlelight — Hike, snowshoe or ski trails lit by luminaries, 6:30–10 p.m. Feb. 20.

Beekeeping 101 — An introduction to how to keep bees, 9 a.m.–3:30 p.m. Feb. 27; registration required.

Other Venues Birds and Coffee Walk — A walk to view birds of the season, 9 a.m. Feb. 10, Kellogg Bird Sanctuary, 12685 East C Ave., Augusta, 6712510.

The American Woodcock: Natural History and Habitat Restoration — Audubon Society of Kalamazoo program featuring speaker Jordyn Richardson, 7 p.m. Feb. 22, People's Church, 1758 N. 10th St., 375-7210.

KPL_Feb2016_TFF.pdf 1 1/11/2016 2:53:06 PM

MISCELLANEOUS Kalamazoo Indoor Flea & Farmers Market — New, used and handcrafted items and fresh food, 8 a.m.–2 p.m. Feb. 2–3, 16–17 & 23–24, Kalamazoo County Expo Center North, 2900 Lake St., 383-8761.

Winter Jamboree — Snowshoeing, kayak sledding, sled dog rides, ice bowling and more, 11 a.m.–1 p.m. Feb. 6, Milham Park Golf Course, 4200 Lovers Lane, 329-4522.

13th Annual Teen Filmmaker Festival Saturday, February 20, 2:30 pm Chenery Auditorium 714 S Westnedge Ave

Chinese New Year Celebration — Presented by the Chinese Association of Greater Kalamazoo, 7 p.m. Feb. 6, Chenery Auditorium, 714 S. Westnedge Ave., 337-0440.

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Dinner & Movie: The Black Panthers: The Vanguard of the Revolution — An Indies Lens Pop-Up screening of a film about the Black Panther movement, 5:30–8 p.m. Feb. 11, Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership, Kalamazoo College, 205 Monroe St., 337-7332.

CM

MY

CY

CMY

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Life in Color: Kingdom — Electronic music

by Zeds Dead and Tommie Sunshine, visual artists, circus-style performers and spraying of the audience with non-toxic paint, 7–11 p.m. Feb. 12, Wings Event Center, 3600 Vanrick Drive, 345-1125.

Amazing films by Michigan’s most talented teens!

kpl.gov/teenfilmfest CAMPAIGNPICTURES

w w w.encorekalamazoo.com | 39

EVENTS ENCORE Julie Powell

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Wine Not? — Winter wine festival offers wine tasting, food pairings and live music from members of the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra, 4–8 p.m. Feb. 13, Radisson Plaza Hotel, 100 W. Michigan Ave., 978-2167.

Valentine's Dinner — A four-course gourmet meal, 6:30–9 p.m. Feb. 13–14, W.K. Kellogg Manor House, 3700 E. Gull Lake Drive, Hickory Corners, 671-2400.

Body Contouring Cosmetic & Reconstructive Facial Improvements

Valentine's Snowshoe Nature Hike — 2–5 p.m.

Feb. 14, Schrier Park, 850 Osterhout Road, Portage, 329-4522.

Burn Care & Reconstruction

Valentine's Skate Date — Skating, live music and dinner on the ice, 4:30–6 p.m. Feb. 14, Millennium Park, 280 Romence Road, Portage, 324-9200; registration required.

Skin Cancer Treatments Scar Revision Botox & Injectable Fillers

Heroes on Deck: World War II on Lake Michigan — A documentary about Navy pilots learning to take off and land on aircraft carriers in Lake Michigan, 7 p.m. Feb. 15, Dalton Theatre, Kalamazoo College, 337-7047.

Shipshewana on the Road — Indoor market, 9 a.m.–6 p.m. Feb. 20, 10 a.m.–5 p.m. Feb. 21, Kalamazoo County Expo Center, 381-0510.

575 W. Crosstown Parkway, Kalamazoo

Kalamazoo Polar Plunge — Dress in costume and plunge into icy waters, 9:30 a.m.–noon Feb. 20, Bell's Eccentric Café, 355 E. Kalamazoo Ave., 616-583-1202.

269.343.5750 Toll-Free 877.995.5750 | www.parkwayps.com

Kalamazoo Reptile & Exotic Pet Expo — 10 a.m.–3 p.m. Feb. 20, Kalamazoo County Expo Center North, 779-9851.

Kalamazoo Teen Filmmaker Festival — Screening of films by Michigan teens, 2:30 p.m. Feb. 20, Chenery Auditorium, 714 S. Westnedge Ave., 342-9827.

Kalamazoo Legacy Ball — Recognizing Black History Month and honoring scholarship recipients, community leaders and business partners, 5–8:30 p.m. Feb. 20, Radisson Plaza Hotel, 616-570-2010.

Kalamazoo Record & CD Show — Collector records and music memorabilia, 11 a.m.–4 p.m. Feb. 21, Room A, Kalamazoo County Expo Center, 734-604-2540.

Great flavor comes from deep roots.

U.S. Synchronized Skating Championship — Teams compete for a spot at the World Championships, Feb. 23–27, Wings Event Center, 345-1125.

bellsbeer.com 40 | ENCORE FEBRUARY 2016

© Bell's Brewery, Inc., Comstock, MI

since 1985

Twilight Skate — Skate under the stars, 8–11 p.m., Feb. 25, Millennium Park, 324-9200.

Winter Blast Half Marathon, 10k and 5k — Community celebration of health and wellness, 8 a.m. Feb. 28, Portage Central High School, 8135 S. Westnedge Ave., 329-4522.

ENCORE POETRY

Signal Fires My husband watched the aurora's glow curtaining above Alaska and said he felt he was seeing the first language.

Greenlanders saw unborn babies playing across the sky. Chinese saw the swoop of dragons.

The Norse believed the strange light flickered and glanced off shields carried by virgin warriors riding into battle. Others say campfires burn in the afterlife.

Jupiter and Saturn wear halos of aurora.

From far in space our tender world appears cupped in sparking hands its poles breathed into flame.

But my husband, this quiet man, gazes at the ruffling sky and calls it the first language.

And for him to speak of language,

of course he chooses light because we've filled forty-odd years more with silence than our words— shadow glances, the waft and billow of moments shared like all lovers who understand their stories ripple and fold, how need arcs, dissolves, the ways we shelter embers.

— Marion Boyer Boyer is a professor emeritus at Kalamazoo Valley Community College and a resident of Mattawan. She has had three published poetry collections and her most recent, Composing the Rain, won the Grayson Books 2014 chapbook competition.

Welcome

Jaclyn Schmidt and Joshua Howells to the firm

Congratulations to

Jennifer Coté and Traci Bienz on obtaining their CPA designation 1300 West Centre Avenue Portage, MI • 269-321-9200 • www.bkccpa.com w w w.encorekalamazoo.com | 41

Second Acts (continued from page 23) Dettloff said that during his career he watched urban planning trends move away from the tight-knit neighborhoods of his youth to more decentralized communities.

“I saw the destruction of community through an approach that inadvertently promoted isolated, sterile development,” Dettloff says. “These elements included wide roads, high-rise condos, one-way streets, housing with big yards, singlefunction buildings and separation between workplaces and homes as well as schools, stores, recreation and nature.”

These trends flew in the face of what Dettloff had once dreamed of doing, but he did what he could.

“I have always tried to impart the building of community in concert with stewardship over the land, space and resources so that people could have a sense of belonging,” he says.

After he retired in 2006, Dettloff discovered a new way for him to build community — through fitness.

Dettloff has been physically active since he set out to abandon his “Pillsbury Dough Boy” physique at the age of 30. He became an avid runner, participating in 50 marathons by the time he turned 50. Dettloff found that he had lots of support — from his family to his running club — that kept him moving.

“Without their support, I would never have stayed with running,” he says.

But when Dettloff retired, he discovered that as a physically active older adult, he was in the minority and many of his babyboomer peers saw retirement as a time to “just sit.”

“If you talk to men who recently retire, they say they just love it,” Dettloff says. “However, six months later they wonder what they did to themselves. They often have no purpose in their lives.

“For me, life at this stage has got to be much more. So I rechanneled my original career and took the skills with me.”

When the opportunity to volunteer as a spinning instructor at the YMCA arose in 2000, before he retired, he grabbed it. That job evolved into a paid, part-time position at the YMCA. Dettloff also became a certified personal trainer and wellness coach, working with clients one-on-one as well as coaching marathon runners.

“This was a dream job for me because I could build community through physical 42 | ENCORE FEBRUARY 2016

fitness. I couldn’t think of any two things I would rather do,” he says.

After almost a decade at the YMCA, Dettloff joined the staff of the Bronson Athletic Club last month, teaching balance, kettlebell and spinning classes and providing personal training. Dettloff says many of his clients are parents who want to lose weight and get into shape.

“They are doing this for their family more than themselves,” he says. “They want to be good role models for their children.”

As a father of two daughters, Dettloff understands the influence parents can have on their children regarding physical fitness. Gretchen Dettloff, of Kalamazoo, is a marathon runner, while Jocelyn Dettloff, of Grand Rapids, who became a paraplegic in 1997 while traveling through West Africa, is a wheelchair tennis player.

“I doubt if I were a couch potato during my daughters’ formative years that they would value physical fitness as much as they do,” Dettloff says.

Once a marketing professional for IBM, The Rev. Denise Posie is now creating leadership learning networks for a Christian-based initiative.

Developing faith leaders The Rev. Denise Posie has been career-driven since she graduated from high school at 16.

She found a job as a part-time clerk typist with the Detroit Public Schools and quickly progressed to a secretary position in the school system. When Posie was 23, her supervisor said she had great potential and arranged for her to visit the president of Wayne County Community College to enroll her in classes. After Poise was admitted, she made it her goal to earn a bachelor’s degree by age 30 while continuing to work full time.

By age 29, she had a degree in business from Marygrove College and bought her first house.

After working at General Motors Research Laboratories as a secretary, Posie moved on to IBM as a customer service representative.

Within 10 months, she moved up to an

administration support role, and six years later decided to pursue a position in marketing.

“I need new opportunities to stretch myself,” Posie says, “and marketing provided more interface with customers and more travel.”

However, during her yearlong training period in Atlanta, Posie felt an “internal nudge” telling her it was time to end her career at IBM, she says. She spent the next three years working as a substitute teacher in Detroit as she tried to discern which new direction to pursue.

“I wasn’t praying for a job like my friends were,” Posie says. “My prayer was for God to show me His will. I didn’t want to be driven by my circumstances. Third-graders taught me patience; God used them to build my character.”

Posie says this time helped her determine that she wanted to become a pastor.

She left Detroit and headed to Columbia International University Seminary & School of Ministry, in Columbia, South Carolina, where she received a Master of Divinity degree in pastoral leadership. Posie was the first African-American resident assistant in the seminary’s women’s graduate dorm and the only student to serve as a representative on the school’s race relations committee.

“In addition to theological, practical training, I was exposed to people from all over the world from different traditions, and I was really excited about learning about their cultures and building relationships,” she says.

After graduation, Posie came to Immanuel Christian Reformed Church, in Kalamazoo’s

Northside neighborhood, where she served as pastor for 13 years. “The church became more racially integrated, and we grew spiritually while I was there,” Posie says.

“One lesson I’ve learned is to have the courage to take a leap of faith even when I don’t know where I’m going.”

— The Rev. Denise Posie However, in 2012, she decided to leave Immanuel and enter another time of discernment.

“One lesson I’ve learned is to have the courage to take a leap of faith even when I don’t know where I’m going,” Posie says.

Turns out she didn’t go far. The Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety (KDPS) was embarking on an effort to change its culture after a 2013 racial profiling assessment and hired Posie to work on the project as a community relations specialist. When that role ended, Posie used those culturechanging skills to work as a congregational consultant in the Office of Pastor-Church Relations for the Christian Reformed Church in North America, based in Grand Rapids.

“We support churches when there is internal conflict and during times of transition,” Posie explains.

Posie’s vast experience has been called upon in a new role, which she began in July. As the co-director for the Reformed Leadership Initiative in Grand Rapids, Posie helps both

the Reformed Church in America and the Christian Reformed Church create leadership learning networks in the U.S. and Canada.

“This is pretty exciting,” Posie says, “because it involves both the pastors and lay leaders, which needs to happen more frequently in our denominations. These networks take a posture of listening and learning from each other about how to engage in mission and ministry in their ministry context.”

But what Posie likes most is the leadership aspect of this role.

“I have had good people ‘poured into me,’” she says. “I’ve read good books on leadership and attended Leadership Kalamazoo. I’ve learned how to help leaders identify and use their strengths, practice spiritual disciplines and build efficient teams. I like to be part of change and transition and to work with people who want to engage with visioning, faith, commitment and adaptability and who are willing to experiment with future prospects.”

Posie also founded DLP Ministries (Daily Living with Purpose) in 2012 and wrote a book, Consider a Greater Purpose.

Despite all she's already done, Posie believes there are more “second acts” to come for her.

“I don’t think I’m done yet,” she says. “As far as I’m concerned, God just might have a greater purpose for me.”

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Adding Up the Benefits per Impression Have you ever wondered what it actually costs to make an impression on someone?

One metric used in marketing—the “cost per impression”—helps decision makers get more out of their advertising.

In a recent study, the average cost per impression of printed and promotional items came to $0.002. In comparison, the cost per impression for online advertising tends to be 25% more. Products like printed pens, shirts, and hats make impressions that add up.

The Direct Marketing Association found in 2010 that one dollar spent on print advertising generated over 12 dollars in sales. Those tangible, printed impressions add up to a great return on investment and build real growth for business.

The next time you have to make a decision about your advertising, think about the value that comes from the impressions you make.

For value that generates results, it’s time to rethink the role of printed promotional materials in your advertising.

INDEX TO ADVERTISERS All Ears Theatre . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 The Ayres Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Bell’s Brewery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Borgess . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 Bravo! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Brink, Key & Chludzinski PC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Bronson Health Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Dave’s Glass Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 DeHaan Remodeling Specialists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 DeMent and Marquardt, PLC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 DeNooyer Chevrolet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 DeVisser Landscape Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Fontana Chamber Arts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Food Dance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Four Roses Café . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Genesis Fitness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

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Gilmore Real Estate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Great Lakes Shipping Co. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Greenleaf Hospitality Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

LIKE WHAT YOU HEAR? JOIN WMUK

Hospice Care of Southwest Michigan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Kalamazoo Bach Festival . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Kalamazoo Community Foundation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Kalamazoo Public Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Kalamazoo RESA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Mercantile Bank of Michigan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Meyer & Allwardt, PC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Parkway Plastic Surgery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Portage Printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Brian Powers Photography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

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Rose Street Advisors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Varnum Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Wild Ginger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 WMUK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Women’s LifeStyle Expo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Yeta’s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Zooroona . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

44 | ENCORE FEBRUARY 2016

BACK STORY (continued from page 46)

How did you get where you are today?

What you do you do when you work with a client?

As a student in the Environmental Studies program at Western Michigan University, I learned about environmental problems and the bad things people are doing to the environment. I became interested in community gardening and eating healthy, whole foods. I got a job at the People’s Food Co-Op, which made me interested in the kinds of food we could produce here.

That path of wanting to know where my food is coming from and the intersection of food and work inspired me to develop a space where people can create foods that they can sell in their communities.

I was not a business major, but I thought, "I am going to start a shared kitchen as a business." I came to realize, however, that there was more of a social mission here. I wanted to make a shared kitchen that was accessible to people who don’t have the opportunity to go out and build their own kitchens. I approached Fair Foods Matters (a local nonprofit that works to improve access to healthy, local food in the Kalamazoo community) and asked if they were interested in taking this on, and they said yes.

Clients start by taking a group tour of the kitchen and learn what the program offers. They get an application, which is really a business-planning tool that asks questions about their idea, where they want to go, what they've done and their experience. It gets them thinking about things they haven’t thought about yet.

We don't want them to get into the kitchen and pay a bunch of money and make something they haven’t thought through. We want them to be at a point where it's a potentially viable business idea.

If they become one of our clients, then we become really engaged.

We meet weekly to go over a checklist of what they should be working on and help them identify tasks that need to be completed, and we give them resource information for everyone from branding specialists to CPAs (certified public accountants) to insurance agents.

What’s a typical day like for you?

I wear a lot of hats. I meet with between two and four new clients a week to help them through the start-up process. I also go out into the community and develop relationships with service providers so that we can add them to the resource guide we give clients. There’s a lot of financial management, including fundraising and grant writing, as well as management of the systems that make the program function, including ensuring our facility is up to code, licensed and clean and our equipment works.

Did you see yourself doing something like this when you were a kid?

No, I thought I was going to be a veterinarian or a psychologist.

There is a component of psychology to it (managing the Can-Do Kitchen), though. It's a kind of a rollercoaster mentoring and guiding new clients through their start-up process. It’s emotional, with ups and downs, and we try to be a solid place for clients to come and freak out and be there for them when they need it.

The Can-Do Kitchen seems to be more than just a kitchen.

The kitchen is a crucial part of it, but it’s really small-business development. People will have a recipe that others tell them is really good, and they want to make it into a business. But they find out it’s so much more than just their recipe. They have to learn how to turn that idea into a business.

What accomplishment have you had that stands out?

Our Business Builders scholarship program, which provided scholarship money for entrepreneurs in low-income brackets that didn’t have capital to develop their ideas. The program gave them the chance to try it out. The strongest scholarship recipient out of that program was Maliesha Pullano, of Mamaleelu Cold Brew Coffee Concentrate. She’s got a great product and is really creative.

What keeps you up at night?

The knowledge that I, as one person, can’t level the playing field and make this opportunity available to everybody. We can offer scholarships, but there are a lot of barriers, including racial, economic and language barriers, and they are forces in the society that are beyond our control.

w w w.encorekalamazoo.com | 45

BACK STORY ENCORE

Lucy Dilley Executive Director, Can-Do Kitchen

The Can-Do Kitchen, a food incubator that has helped local entrepreneurs launch new products, from bean dip and Brazilian bread to granola and coffee concentrate, was created because Lucy Dilley was interested in where her own food came from and how it was produced.

Eight years later, her “little spark of an idea” has grown from a Fair Food Matters pilot program operating out of a trailer to a shared commercial kitchen at the People’s Food CoOp. Soon the Can-Do Kitchen will be its own stand-alone organization and move to a bigger facility that will allow the organization to help more fledgling entrepreneurs, says Dilley.

46 | ENCORE FEBRUARY 2016

Mike Lanka

(continued on page 45)

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