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Leelanau’s influencers of 2024

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With 2024 in the rearview mirror and 2025 upon us, we’re recognizing 25 “influencers” we covered in the Glen Arbor Sun this past year who are making a meaningful impact on Leelanau County communities, commerce, and culture. Read below about those 25 local influencers, who include everyone from the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, to Leelanau Investing for Teens, to Empire’s polar dippers, to popular new destinations River Club Glen Arbor, the Sleeping Bear Inn, and the Lively’s NeighborFood Market.

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Leelanau locals plant seeds, grow cultural exchanges in Guatemala

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Twenty years ago, when Paul Sutherland joined the board of Safe Passage, which launched a school for the children of the Guatemala City garbage dump, he also helped kickstart what has become a dynamic and ongoing relationship between Leelanau County citizens and Guatemala. In the decades since then, local schools have sent students, and teams of volunteers have joined cultural exchange trips to the beautiful, yet economically unequal, Central American nation. Since the COVID-19 pandemic abated, Guatemalan nonprofit Planting Seeds has hosted “service learning” groups from Northwestern Michigan College as well as Leelanau Investing for Teens (LIFT) and Leland High School. Planting Seeds co-director and Illinois native Mac Philips will visit Leelanau County this weekend to raise awareness about the nonprofit and build support in northern Michigan. He’ll visit Grocer’s Daughter Chocolate on Saturday, Suttons Bay Congregational Church on Sunday, and students in Suttons Bay and Leland.

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Hive in Suttons Bay caters to community

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Waffles on a stick? A social club without alcohol? All based around a small-town coffee shop? Welcome to Hive, the Suttons Bay coffee shop that’s long on service, special events and community. And coffee, of course. After all, that’s what enticed Landon McDaid to open the Suttons Bay business at the location previously occupied by Mundos Roasters. It still serves Mundos coffee, with specialties including blueberry lemon latte, flavored espresso tonic and other specialty drinks.

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Glen Arbor Arts Center and LIFT team up kids with art

If it’s July, then it must be time for art projects for Glen Lake middle schoolers. Same for August. And September, October—you get the idea. Thanks to a partnership between the Glen Arbor Arts Center and Leelanau Investing For Teens—the Suttons Bay-based center for after-school activities commonly known by its acronym LIFT—each month the art center offers a class for students from Glen Lake Middle School. The partnership started in April 2024 and programs will continue through April 2025, or until all 12 classes are fulfilled, though both GAAC and LIFT are hopeful additional funding will allow it to continue.

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Genuine Leelanau raises funds for LIFT

Genuine Leelanau Community Foundation will hold its annual fundraiser on Thursday, June 27, from 6-8 pm at V Gallery in Omena (formerly Tamarack Gallery). The event will feature appetizers, dessert, wine and beer, and live music. Funds this year support Leelanau Investing for Teens (LIFT) Tickets are available on MyNorthTickets. Genuine Leelanau, a 501(c)3 non-profit, raises money to award grants for programs that benefit women, children, families, and the arts in Leelanau County.

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Rebekah and Gerald TenBrink uplift local teenagers

Rebekah and Gerald TenBrink are the kind of neighbors that anyone in Leelanau County would be proud to know. This young couple not only talk about community, they also live it on a daily basis—and make it seem fun into the bargain. To spend time with them is to feel uplifted and hopeful, particularly in these troubling times of social unrest and the coronavirus pandemic.

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