Chocolate making is an incredible journey. For Grocer’s Daughter this journey starts in Ecuador. Near the small town of Calceta, in western Ecuador, sits the Fortaleza Del Valle cocoa cooperative. Nearly 900 small, family cacao farms rely on the cooperative to obtain expensive Fair Trade and Organic certifications, carefully process their beans and ensure that they will be sold for a fair, living wage.
The Leelanau School featured a special graduation speaker during its commencement ceremony on June 3. Alum Arya Khoshnegah, together with his sister Laila, left Iran as teenagers and enrolled at the private boarding school north of Glen Arbor, just before the 1979 revolution that changed the fortunes of their family and their country. Leelanau, which specializes in experiential learning and small class sizes in a beautiful setting, graduated 19 seniors who hail from 11 states. Distinguished alumni have included survivors of wars and natural disasters, children of statesmen and accomplished actors.
The January 21, 2017, Women’s March on Washington, D.C. attracted more than half a million demonstrators to the banks of the Potomac. Writer Anne-Marie Oomen of Empire, and other Leelanau women shared their experiences from that day.
Like many in Flint’s Latino immigrant community, Yaquelin Vargas said she didn’t learn until late January that Flint’s drinking water was lead poisoned. Vargas, a U.S. citizen, said she drank tap water while she was pregnant, and as she first began breastfeeding Lydia, now 8 months old, who suffers from lead poisoning.
While the English often name their houses, here in the United States we typically do so only for our seasonal cottages. And the roads of northern Michigan are dotted with endearing cottage names painted and carved into roadside signs. Some signs seem homemade, others look professionally produced. Some are simple; others have elaborate scenic images and distinct fonts. They may refer to family name, the setting, the structure itself, values or preferences. A few declare that this is paradise.
The road to our own personal ‘Tour de Leelanau’ started, in a grand sense, around the summer solstice, when we and our bikes pedaled out of the Chicago area with the intention, like so many others, of getting ‘out to the country’ to celebrate the warm months. Earlier, in the spring, while living and working in Los Angeles, we used a program called World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF) to get in contact with a number of farmers situated up and down the western coast of your great state.
We need to rebirth train travel here in Michigan. The rails and the back lots are still here. And the will to do so is emerging thanks to the leadership of the local Groundwork Center (formerly the Michigan Land Use Institute). They have a plan to connect Traverse City to Ann Arbor, with stops in Cadillac, Mt. Pleasant, Alma, Owosso, and Howell. This is a great idea. Let’s all spread the re-appearing railroad news. Here are some details from the Groundwork Center:
Empire resident Ella Skrocki returned from Nepal just weeks before the tragic earthquake struck. She wrote the story “Nepal in our hearts and minds” for GlenArborSun.com. Skrocki is an organizer of a fundraiser on May 14 at The Remedy cafe in Traverse City, from 4-7 p.m. The event will benefit Nepali earthquake victims. Guests will be treated to Nepali cuisine, live music by local artists, a slideshow of Skrocki’s experiences, and before and after images of impacted areas.
Empire native Ella Skrocki recently returned from Nepal. She writes these words following the terrible earthquake on Saturday that has claimed the lives of thousands. “After the network in Nepal came back this morning, I finally was able to get through to Angnima, the mentor I lived with for two months while studying in Nepal’s rural villages. Angnima was hit by falling rock while fleeing Langtang as the trees and land caved in around him. He and the rest of “our” family is alive.”
When dolphins wash up on shore in significant numbers, we suspect there’s something wrong happening in the ocean. It’s just not what we expect. It’s not a natural phenomenon. We may not know what it is exactly, but we guess that, whatever’s happening, however unknown or unknowable to us, it’s got to be about more than dolphins simply taking a notion. Why don’t we have the same common sense intuition about the children at the U.S.-Mexican border?