Article

One Book One Community strives to educate

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For 18 years, East Lansing and Michigan State University have joined forces to provide to encourage its residents – permanent and temporary ones — to read. The One Book One Community committee selects a book for incoming Michigan State University freshmen and the local East Lansing community to read. “We meet once a week year-round and we discuss books, themes and programming,” said Kristin Shelley, the director of East Lansing Public Library, and on One Book One Community’s planning committee. “We are constantly reading and throwing titles out.”

This year, the committee decided to include the community in the selection process. “We narrowed it down to three books,” said Shelley.

Article

Bogue Street protected bike lane pilot program approved by East Lansing City Council

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A proposed bike lane on Bogue Street is inching closer to a reality, as the team behind the proposal updated members of the council at a meeting on July 16. The team behind the proposal presented at the Traffic Commission meeting the previous evening, on July 15, and presented to the council an update on the project, which has tentative installation date of mid-August. “We’re redoing the trail from Farm Lane to Bogue,” said project manager Tressa Wahl. “We studied it long and hard, and we came up with this solution, and that’s why we’re rolling with it.”

“We looked at a lot of other options, too,” said team member Robert Rayl, of RS Engineering, LLC, “and this was the safest one.”

A pilot program of a new bike lane on Bogue Street was approved and supported by council at the July 16 meeting. The team aims to complete installation mid-August, with an October removal.

Arts & Entertainment

Root Doctor plays for hometown crowd at Summer Solstice Jazz Festival

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For 23 years, the Summer Solstice Jazz Festival has brought live jazz music and education to the East Lansing community, showcasing both nationally recognized and local artists. The 2019 festival served more than a gathering of bands. For its closing act, Root Doctor, it served as a homecoming celebration. “We’ve been playing for 30 years in the area,” said band manager Marge Mooney. “We have a lot of family and a lot of friends that we’ve acquired through playing in the area, so it was exciting to have us back in town.”

This year marks the 30 year anniversary of the band, which formed in Lansing in 1989.

Article

The arts has strong foundation in Lansing

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The Greater Lansing area boasts a strong arts community thanks to the Broad Art Lab and Lansing Arts Council, among others, that ensure the community is engaged with the arts. The Broad Art Lab is dedicated to community participation, programming and outreach. In an effort to involve the local community in unprecedented ways, it hosts “Community Open Calls,” where the general public can propose their own ideas, projects, events or workshops to host at the lab. “Art is what gives a community its soul, its individuality, its life force, its very uniqueness,” says Ben Graham, founder of the Lansing-based visual strategy and design business Ben Graham Group, Inc. “This creates positive moments and memories from this simple interaction. Art is lasting, art is important!”

Graham was a member of the previous review committee, made up of local businesses and artists, that judge the submitted applications to ultimately select which get put on at the Broad Art Lab.

East Lansing

East Lansing Farmers Market is important to local farmers

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The East Lansing Farmers Market has an estimated 1000 visitors each Sunday during its operating months. Phil Throop, owner of Wildflower Eco Farm, has been a vendor for the East Lansing Farmers Market since its opening, 11 years ago, but he has been farming for market much longer, close to 16 years. One thing Throop has found after over a decade of farming for market: “You don’t get into this unless you’re obsessed… it’s more of an addition in any case.”

Another thing Throop has found: “It’s not a very profitable business.”

New technology regarding various types of greenhouses and sources of heating make it possible to grow year-round. However, his ability to produce 12 months a year has little impact on the ability to turn a profit during all those months. Instead, the root of the problem is something else entirely.