Great Lakes Bioneers

TAKE A FAIR TRADE BREAK on WORLD FAIR TRADE DAY
SATURDAY, MAY 10TH all day at Unity, Higher Grounds, and Oryana
TC’S LARGEST FAIR TRADE COFFEE BREAK is at 3PM at Unity

For the official international Web site, go to: World Fair Trade Day
Come join in these local events to celebrate the movement to make trade fair. Learn about the benefits of fair trade (FT), and taste the difference that respect, love and dignity can make in chocolate, coffee, olive oil, fruit preserves, bananas and other fair trade products.

Unity FT Marketplace will be tasting free FT coffee, chocolate, etc all day, as well as holding a drawing for a $25 gift certificate to the store full of FT fashion, toys, books, and beautiful/useful home decor. join us here at 3PM for the official TC’s largest fair trade coffee break Lets get the whole town together to join in this awesome celebration 113 E State St. (in the alley behind the City Opera House) 929-4228 http://unityfairtrade.com/

Higher Grounds and Oryana all day will be tasting free fair trade coffee, local FT fruit preserves and other FT goodies. Come check out their SALES on FT products in honor of WFTD

Oryana: 260 E.10th St. (at Lake st) 947-0191 http://www.oryana.coop/

Higher Grounds: 806 Red Dr., Suite 150 (the old state hospital) 922-9009 http://www.highergroundstrading.com/

What is Fair Trade?
Fair Trade is an alternative way of doing business, one that builds equitable, long-term partnerships between consumers in North America and producers in developing regions. Fair Trade businesses commit to:

• Paying a fair wage in the local context.
• Offering employees opportunities for advancement.
• Providing equal opportunities for all people, particularly the most disadvantaged.
• Engaging in environmentally sustainable practices.
• Being open to public accountability.
• Building long-term trade relationships.
• Providing healthy and safe working conditions within the local context.
• Providing financial and technical assistance to producers whenever possible.
This criteria was established by the Fair Trade Federation.

This was kind of hidden at the end of the last entry…We just wanted to bring your attention to it in case you missed it. After all, we tend not to notice what we aren’t looking for.

Is Your Community Bike Friendly? Take this test; it’s short.

Happy Spring! or is it Late Winter! or Spring!?

Well, it’s Michigan, anyway. As we await more green shoots, here’s what’s cooking up north:

First, Thanks For Your Support!
We had an amazingly great showing of people who came to our Locavore Potluck and the movie, King Corn. We surprised ourselves with the turn out and were really happy to help showcase the new Serenity Tea Bar and Cafe as well as bring many new faces (and farmers) to the State Theater, where Great Lakes Bioneers was in lights on the marquee. How fun!

Last Call For Presenter Proposals
In case you haven’t written it down yet, the Great Lakes Bioneers Conference will be October 17-19, 2008 right here in Traverse City, MI. Are you doing something that you’d like to share with others? Know someone else who is? The Bioneers mission is based on the promotion and application of practical solutions and innovative strategies for restoring Earth and our communties. Presenters are not paid, though we offer complimentary registration, lodging and meals for those selected.

Applicants will be notified by June 1. Fill our our application form online by May 14 if you are interested in being a presenter or would like to recommend someone to us.
Website Redesign: Your Input Requested
We want to incorporate YOUR website wishes as we redesign the GLBioneers website. Let us know what you’d like to see more of, what you’d like to see less of, and ideas to make it better. The website is there for you, so please let us know what works. Send comments to info(at)glbconference.org.

Have Time to Help? Volunteer with Us!
We need volunteers to help us create outreach materials and displays, update our press contact lists, do data entry, and hang posters & deliver brochures across the state. We also have some fun new outreach ideas that we think you’ll enjoy. Including,

• Bioneer Walk-Abouts: canvass for Bioneers! We’ll start knocking on doors later this spring.
• Salons, Brunches, and Ice Cream Socials: Interested in hosting a Bioneer event for your friends and neighbors? We’ll help!

More volunteer needs are coming as we close in on this year’s conference, that’s right, October 17-19. Let us know your skills, talents, and availability and we’ll help you help us! Contact Tara(at)ecoSEEDS.org or call 231.947.0312

Final Note: Is Your Community Bike Friendly? Take this test; it’s short.

Happy Spring! or is it Late Winter! or Spring!?

Well, it’s Michigan, anyway. As we await more green shoots, here’s what’s cooking up north:

First, Thanks For Your Support!
We had an amazingly great showing of people who came to our Locavore Potluck and the movie, King Corn. We surprised ourselves with the turn out and were really happy to help showcase the new Serenity Tea Bar and Cafe as well as bring many new faces (and farmers) to the State Theater, where Great Lakes Bioneers was in lights on the marquee. How fun!

Last Call For Presenter Proposals
In case you haven’t written it down yet, the Great Lakes Bioneers Conference will be October 17-19, 2008 right here in Traverse City, MI. Are you doing something that you’d like to share with others? Know someone else who is? The Bioneers mission is based on the promotion and application of practical solutions and innovative strategies for restoring Earth and our communties. Presenters are not paid, though we offer complimentary registration, lodging and meals for those selected.

Applicants will be notified by June 1. Fill our our application form online by May 14 if you are interested in being a presenter or would like to recommend someone to us.
Website Redesign: Your Input Requested
We want to incorporate YOUR website wishes as we redesign the GLBioneers website. Let us know what you’d like to see more of, what you’d like to see less of, and ideas to make it better. The website is there for you, so please let us know what works. Send comments to info(at)glbconference.org.

Have Time to Help? Volunteer with Us!
We need volunteers to help us create outreach materials and displays, update our press contact lists, do data entry, and hang posters & deliver brochures across the state. We also have some fun new outreach ideas that we think you’ll enjoy. Including,

• Bioneer Walk-Abouts: canvass for Bioneers! We’ll start knocking on doors later this spring.
• Salons, Brunches, and Ice Cream Socials: Interested in hosting a Bioneer event for your friends and neighbors? We’ll help!

More volunteer needs are coming as we close in on this year’s conference, that’s right, October 17-19. Let us know your skills, talents, and availability and we’ll help you help us! Contact Tara(at)ecoSEEDS.org or call 231.947.0312

Final Note: Is Your Community Bike Friendly? Take this test; it’s short.

This Just In, Corporations are ruling the world! OK, so that’s old news but if your looking for a comprehensive and entertaining look at the creation of the modern corporate machine, visit our friends at the State Theatre (www.statetheatrtc.org) tonight to view the screening of THE CORPORATION (www.thecorporation.com).

Taking the corporation’s legal status as a “person” to its logical conclusion, the film puts the corporation on the psychiatrist’s couch to ask “What kind of person is it?” Provoking, witty, sweepingly informative…and, either depressing as hell or a stimulus package of a different sort.

When: Tonight!!! April 28 at 7:30 at the Traverse City State Theatre… www.statetheatretc.org
This film is part of the on going Monday night Community film series, tonight’s host is the Unitarian/Universalist group

Great Lakes Bioneers’ founders, Bob Russell and Sally VanFleck, were featured in this week’s free weekly The Northern Express. The feature is an interview with writer Anne Stanton discussing the state of the world. Those who know them will appreciate Stanton’s introduction: “Talking with Sally VanFleck and Bob Russell can either be highly motivating or deeply depressing.”

Look for the papers around Northern Michigan, they are literally everywhere, or read the article online after it is archived in a week or two at Northern Express Archive.

Second Annual Skill Swap–registration now open!
Presented by our friends at ISLAND and the Wagbo Peace Center is now taking registrations for the event on May 10, 2008 from 9 to 3 at Wagbo Peace Center in East Jordan. On display with hands on experience are 15 skills that build self-reliance, taught by your friends and neighbors, along with a fresh local and wild foods lunch and a post-workshop contra dance! Skills include bread baking, seed starting, irrigation for water saving, handmade paper making, timber stand improvement and more!

Early registration is $25 per person, kids 14 and under free! Add lunch for just $5.

All the information you need and online registration is at www.artmeetsearth.org/skillswap.htmlSkills Workshops:

Session I (9:30 to 10:55)
Baking Bread: Yeasted & Sourdough
Seed Starting & Transplanting
Irrigation for Water Saving
Handmade Paper Making
Timber Stand Improvement

Session II (11:05 to 12:30)
Chicken Processing
Seed Saving
Earth Floor Construction
Handmade Soap
Cook for a Crowd (& make lunch!)

Session III (1:30 to 2:55)
Friction Fire Starting
Cultured Foods
All About Herbs
Pruning Fruit Trees
Earthwise Cleaning Products

Northern Michigan just can’t seem to fit Earth Day into a one day. What’s going on?

The building of the Earth Day parade (Building Revolution), Odom’s 10th Anniversary festivities & tour, Oryana’s 35th Party, the annual NMEAC EOY dinner where we will present our 2008 Bioneers Award, the Compost Give-a-way, the EDay Parade, the Empty Bowls Benefit…and that’s not even all of it…

For a complete low down of events, go to the Progressive Calendar at www.traverseareaprogressives.org

See you there, or somewhere in between.

The Great Lakes BIONEERS Award goes to a person whose life-work embodies the bioneer principles of interconnectedness, development of healthy relationships, and respect for the inherent intelligence of all life and ecological systems. This Award is for those who go beyond sustaining their home communities, but heal and regenerate them as well. For being an avenue toward hope.
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Stephanie Mills has been engaged in the ecology movement for more than thirty years, and in 1996 was named by Utne Reader as one of the world’s leading visionaries. Stephanie Mills is an author, editor, lecturer and ecological activist who has concerned herself with the fate of the earth and humanity since 1969, when her commencement address at Mills College in Oakland, Calif., drew the attention of a nation. Her speech, which the New York Times called “perhaps the most anguished statement” of the year’s crop of valedictory speeches, predicted a bleak future.

Stephanie Mills’s account of the simple life reaches deep into classical sources of pleasure - good food, good health, good friends, and particularly the endless delights of the natural world. One of the primary motivations for her pursuit of simplicity is her concern about the impacts of a consumerist lifestyle on the natural world. Mills touches on broad range of topics relating to that issue - social justice, biological extinctions, the global economy, and also more personal aspects such as friendship, the process of country living, the joys of physical exertion, the challenges of a writer’s life, and the natural history and seasonal delights of a life lived close to nature. An overarching theme is the destructiveness of consumerism, and how even a simple life affects a wide range of organisms and adds strain to the earth’s systems. The author uses her own experience as an entry point to the discussion with self humor and lyrical prose that bring big topics to a personal level.

Her book: Epicurean Simplicity is beautifully crafted, fluid, inspiring, and enlightening, examining topics of critical importance that affect us all. It celebrates the pleasures, beauty, and fulfillment of a simple life, a goal being sought by Americans from all walks of life, from harried single parents to corporate CEOs. For fans of natural history or personal narrative, for those concerned about social justice and the environment, and for those who have come to know and love Stephanie Mills through her speaking and writing, Epicurean Simplicity is a rare treasure. So many people who have read this book, have genuinely been touched by it, and wish that they could - yes - live that life. Her new book, published and released in 2007 is called Tough Little Beauties and examines issues that remain timely: overpopulation, ecological degradation, and the Peak Oil crisis as well as a lived spirituality.

The Award will presented on April the 18th at the Annual NMEAC Environmentalist of the Year Award from 6 – 9 pm at the Waterfront Conference Center in Traverse Cit. For more information about the event and NMEAC, visit their Web site at www.nmeac.org

Wow. Thank you to all of those who made last night one of the most exciting Monday nights the Traverse City State Theatre has seen- in March no-less. We had a strong turn out of over 450 view King Corn, which, according to co-producer and c0-star Ian Cheney might just be the most who have seen the film at one time since its release. Ian was in attendance and led an intriguing conversation about food and food culture after the film. If you missed it, try to catch IPR’s Bob Allen’s piece this afternoon or online after today for a little taste.

We started off the night with a grand potluck across the street at the Serenity Tea Bar and Café. Over 150 came to participate in the Locavore Hors d’Oeuvres Challenge, watch the premier of Talkin’ Bout Making Culture, and check out Traverse City’s new downtown hangout.

The Great Lakes Bioneers says thank you to our co-sponsor Oryana, our reception host Serenity Tea Bar and Café and Edible Grande Traverse & Michigan Land Use Institute for additional contribution.

Hope to see you soon!

Great Lakes Bioneers presents King Corn, from Mosaic Films Inc., at the State Theatre in downtown Traverse City, March 31, 7:30pm. This is a feature documentary film about two friends, one acre of corn, and the subsidized crop that drives our fast-food nation. Follow the journey as they purchase, grow and sell an acre of commodity corn in Iowa. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll definitely read your ingredient labels differently.

Before the film, join our special guests at a Locavore Hors d’Oeuvres Challenge hosted by Serenity Tea Bar and Café, located across Front St. from the theater from 5:30-7:00PM. Please bring finger-food that features ingredients grown and produced within our local foodshed! A dish is not required and the pre-film reception is free.

Also showing, Talkin’ Bout Making Culture, a documentary about Michigan Community Supported Agriculture, or CSA, produced and starring 2007 keynote speaker, Marty Heller, will be shown at the pre-film reception.

For more information, visit www.glbconference.org or email: info@glbconference.org.
Tickets for the film can be bought online at: www.Statetheatretc.org

Thanks to Oryana Natural Foods for sponsoring our special guest speaker, King Corn producer and star Ian Cheney! Also thanks to Serenity Tea Bar & Café, MLUI and Edible Grande Traverse for support.

Saturday, MARCH 15, 2008 Earth Day Parade Fundraiser….

The annual “Bring in the Spring” kick-off event to mark the beginning of the Earth Day parade-building workshops is set. Join the community to CELEBRATE the arrival of Spring!

It will be a marvelous evening of family fun, with a Puppet Fashion Show, featuring fantastic Garbage Art Creations- Light refreshments will be served, followed with a dance-dance-to the Earth Day Revolution-Party!

This is a “Swanky” event—so haul out your fancy duds and let’s have some high-class, crazy puppet fun!

$10 each/ $25 per family

6-9 PM at the ArtCenter of Traverse City corner of Elmwood and 11th St.

for more information: www.littleartshram.org
Dede 231-276-2328 or, 231-510-3491

Institute for Sustainable Living, Art & Natural Design (ISLAND) is brewing up a lot of action in Antrim county. Visit their Web site for more details for these events:

• Your Green Home: The Design and Construction of Environmentally Sound Homes for Everyone
  Thursday, March 6, from 9:30am to 3:30pm, at Helena Township Community Center
  in Alden.
• Calling all Teachers! The Second Annual Skill Swap call for teachers is now open! The Skill Swap will
  be held Saturday, May 10 at Wagbo Peace Center in East Jordan.
• Art, Film, Philosophy with author Stephanie Mills: Tuesday, March 11, from 6 to 8 pm at Moka in Bellaire.

And, another event that Antrim County Bioneeros may be interested in: MSU Cooperative Extension and the Antrim County Farmers Market are showing Sioux City Sue, a documentary by Chris Bedford, on Thursday, March 6th at 7pm at the Bellaire Senior Center. The film will be followed by a short discussion about the local food system.

Full Press Release & Film Description: King Corn (PDF)

This March 31st, follow the journey of two college friends as they purchase, grow and sell an acre of commodity corn in Iowa. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll definitely read your ingredient labels differently.

Mon., March 31 > Pre-Film Reception 5:30-7 > Film 7:30

Great Lakes BIONEERS presents the documentary film, King Corn from Mosaic Films Inc., at the Traverse City State Theatre on Monday, March 31 at 7:30 PM. Before the film, join our special guests at a Locavore Hors d’Oeuvres Challenge hosted by Serenity Tea Bar and Café, located across Front St. from the theater from 5:30-7:00PM. The community is welcome to participate in the Locavore Hors d’Oeuvres Challenge by bringing a finger-food that features ingredients grown and produced within our local foodshed. A dish is not required and the pre-film reception is free.

King Corn is a feature documentary about two friends, one acre of corn, and the subsidized crop that drives our fast-food nation. In King Corn, Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, best friends from college on the East coast, move to the heartland to learn where their food comes from. With the help of friendly neighbors, genetically modified seeds, and powerful herbicides, they plant and grow a bumper crop of America’s most-productive, most-subsidized grain on one acre of Iowa soil. But when they try to follow their pile of corn into the food system, what they find raises troubling questions about how we eat—and how we farm.

“If you take a McDonald’s meal, you don’t realize it when you eat it, but you’re eating corn. Beef has been corn-fed. Soda is corn. Even the French fries. Half the calories in the French fries come from the fat they’re fried in, which is liable to be either corn oil or soy oil. So when you’re at McDonald’s, you’re eating Iowa food. Everything on your plate is corn,” says author and UC Berkeley professor, Michael Pollan.
How did the tyranny of corn come to be? Is it possible Americans eat nearly 75 pounds of high fructose corn syrup annually? Why do we spend billions per year subsidizing a single crop?

Great Lakes BIONEERS and Oryana Natural Foods Market have teamed up to bring co-Producer, Ian Cheney, to Traverse City for the event. Meet Ian before the film at the Serenity Tea Bar and Café and stay after the film for a quick Q&A. Talkin’ Bout Making Culture, a locally produced documentary about Community Supported Agriculture, or CSA, in Michigan will also be shown at the pre-film reception. .

Great Lakes BIONEERS would also like to thank Edible Grande Traverse and the Michigan Land Use Institute for additional contributions.

For ticket information: www.statetheatretc.org

Have you noticed that “green” has gone corporate? Does it leave a funny feeling in your stomach? It seems like a great thing, but then, can we trust it? Do you have a little time on your hands? Well, join the citizenry led rating board at the Greenwashing Index. The index is “home of the world’s first online interactive forum that allows consumers to evaluate real advertisements making environmental claims“. After that, swing over to CorpWatch and nominate your choices for the bimonthly Greenwash Awards.

In February the Traverse City Record Eagle published a green edition supplement that featured one of our favorite Northern Michigan Bioneers, Jayne Leatherman Walker, from the Eco-Learning Center.

The article by Darcy Bluhm can be read here: A Growing Legacy: Jayne Leatherman Walker teaches sustainable living at The Farm. We couldn’t agree more with the author’s first sentiments that, “few people have made the commitment to overhaul a good portion of their lives to actually live the lifestyle” of living green like Jayne.

Image from 2004 by Gary Howe for a Bioneer Profile written by Jayson Spaulding when Jayne won the Great Lakes BIONEERS award.

“Babies staying clean and dry without diapers?” No? Really? Want to learn more? DIAPER FREE! The Gentle Wisdom of Natural Infant Hygiene by Ingrid Bauer is dedicated to the practice.

It is being done by default all over the world, but now the more complicated and economically developed world is reconnecting with their children and getting rid of the stinky diaper as well (More parents opting to go diaper-free). By no means would we suggest that everyone must stop using the convenience of the diaper, but perhaps the moms and dads of the bioregion might be interested in some diaperless success stories.

It might also save on some of the use of cosmetics needed to keep that baby’s butt smooth. A recent report found high levels of chemicals in infants’ urine that were exposed to baby cosmetics. Story here: Baby Cosmetics

It is that time of year again. Are you doing something innovative? Do you want to share with others? We are now taking proposals for the 2008 Bioneers Conference. Click through to our Proposal Form.

Also, drop us a line as a comment on this BLOG. What kind of traffic are we getting here???

Edited: 2-22-2008

SEEDS is no longer taking applications for this position. They will announce the new member of the family in early March.

_______

GLB’s co-sponsor, SEEDS, has an opening for a new project manager. The position is primarily concerned in coordinating the Great Lakes Bioneers Conference.

Holiday Reception at Unity Fair Trade

Come support new owners, Vicki and Art Kinney and shop sustainably!!!

When: Tuesday evening, December, 18th; from 7:00 to 9:00 PM
What: Community, refreshments and music
Where: Unity Fair Trade Market (located in the alley behind Union Street Station)
Who: sponsored by the Great Lakes Bioneers Committee

A transcript of Marty Heller’s keynote address from the Great Lakes BIONEERS Conference-TC is now available online.

To read online or to download a PDF, visit the following link:

“Reconnecting a Local Food Culture“

Note: No, Marty was not attacked by massive basket of tomatoes.

All of us at the Great Lakes Bioneers send a massive shout-out to the other satellite conferences, the headwaters and all the other creatures sharing this planet with us-four legged, two legged and no-legged alike. Spectacular energy.

Click image for larger file. More photos later when our photographer actually gets to work.

For images from the headwaters and other satellite conference, go to: Bioneers Images

We are kicking off the 6th Great Lakes Bioneers Conference in Traverse City today. We will start with a keynote address by local farmer Marty Heller about “Re-creating a Local Food Culture and Why We All Need to Get Involved in Reshaping the Federal Food Bill“.

After that, we break into workshops covering subjects like Social Justice and Michigan’s Migrant Community, Wind Energy, How to Incorporate Activism into Family Life and many more opportunities for synergy. Of course, at mid-day there is an deee-lisious locally envisioned and produced lunch before the afternoon plenary speakers who include Jay Harman, Judy Baca, Judy Wicks, John Abrams before we are blown away by Van Jones. (Complete profiles).

All followed by a concert by a collective of Earthwork Musicians.  Actually, I think I missed many of thethings happening today, so you might just want to come down and check it out for yourself.

It’s BLOG Action Day…did you know that? Over 12,000 BLOGS are blogging about the environment today. Here at the Great Lakes Bioneers, where everything is connected, we were already planning to do that. We wanted to let you know that with only 4 days to go before the 2007 conference, that pre-registration options are now closed. If you want to participate, and we know you do, just come on the day (s) you can and we will fix you up.

On site registration will take place in Scholars Hall on the campus of Northwestern Michigan College beginning at 8:00 am on Fri. Oct. 19, Sat. Oct. 20 and Sun. Oct. 21. Arrive early to ensure that you don’t miss any of the morning speakers.

There is room, and we would love to see you.

1. Tuesday, October 16 - The Future of Green Building: Our Obligation to Environmental Stewardshi. Click here for registration: Home Builders (PDF)
2. Wednesday, October 17 - The Grand Vision: How Will the Grand Traverse Region Look in 50 Years? You Will Decide!
3. Thursday, October 18- Re-localizing II-Skill Swap

And, of course, from October 19-21 plan on being at the Great Lakes Bioneers Conference. Thanks to everyone who has registered early! These early registrations help us in the same way subscribing to a CSA helps a farmer. Registration will be open until the last day of the conference and we’ll be happy to see you anytime! Didn’t get a registration in the mail? Print one for yourself by clicking here. Or you can register online. And remember, this year we are more family friendly than ever. How does a nap in the family lounge sound?

“Bioneers” an Art Show — October 12th-October 27th, 2007

A non-juried exhibition at the INSIDEOUT GALLERY, 229 Garland, Traverse City, MI in conjuction with the Great Lakes Bioneers Conference, October 19th-21st

Deadline for submissions: Oct. 5th-6th
Printable Entry form with more information: Bioneers Art Show (PDF)

Registration brochures have been sent out and we are beginning to receive a your registrations. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

We also offer secure online registration. It helps us save some paper and it even helps us with some of the adminstration time, so we encourage you to register online.

Great Lakes Bioneers Online Registration

Download a Registration Brochure (PDF)

Our local cherry farmers - including our own Food Committee Chair, Todd Springer - have been working long hours gathering the nearly 200 million pounds of these delectable fruits that Michigan produces. Whoa.

July isn’t just busy in the orchards…it’s a busy time for Bioneers organizers as well. Our workshop slots are now filled and I am sure many of you will comment that there was not enough time to get to every workshop you were interested in. In 2007, you can look forward to learning about medicines in your backyard, incorporating activism into family life, green roofing and so much more!

We have also invited folks to become Organizational Partners and Business Sponsors; if you didn’t get a letter in the mail and wish you had, we’re sorry! We’re happy to remedy that situation. You can also download detailed letters from our website. We need to hear from you by July 25 to get your name and advertisement in the registration booklet going out to thousands in early August. When is that deadline again? July 25. And, hey, anyone can advertise to give a shout out to people or ideas you love. Just get us a check and the ad copy by July 25.

If you aren’t a business or an organization and want to help, it’s easy!

1. Buy an advertisement for an idea, a quote, or to say happy birthday.
2. We accept donations at any time of year.
3. You can join the national Bioneers and mention our name - we get a portion of their income.
4. Give goods and gift certificates for our Silent Auction. info@glbconference.org
5. Convince your friends, family and neighbors to register & attend the conference October 19-21.

Registration will open in early August. Until then!

Straight from the Headwaters we have this year’s plenary speakers.

You’ll recognize a few of the speakers, but many from this year’s list are first time presentations at the Bioneers conference. For complete lsit and tentative schedule, visit: Bioneers Plenary Speakers

Do you have any thoughts about any of these speakers? Send us a comment. We would love to hear your connection and story.

Comment here, or send us an email�

The 2007 Earth Day parade is soon upon us! On Saturday April 21 come join all the four and two legged, feathered and non-feathered, water and land, creatures, for a march along Front Street in Traverse City. The parade lineup is at noon at Central Grade School and the parade begins at 1 PM.

Get all the details on the Little Artshram blog! As you can see, the weather is looking good.

The workers at the Earth Day Workshops have been busy building puppets at the Art Center in Traverse City. Louie Blouin puts the final touches on a chicken (?) on Sunday April 15th. There is certainly still opportunities to help out in the final week. Visit the Little Artshram for all the details!

Other Earth Day events planned:

1. NMEAC EOY and Bioneer of the Year Award> Friday April 20th
2. Self serve, self haul compost is yours FREE > Saturday, April 21st
3. Free Blue Spruce trees> Saturday , April 21st
4. Empty Bowls> Fresh Food Partnership> Sunday, April 22nd