Posts

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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Leland grad, U-M student leader, supports Palestinians

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Leland native Paige Cook will be a junior at the University of Michigan when classes resume in early September. She currently works on the podcast team of What the F, a feminist magazine on campus, and has participated in Central Student Government. Cook and other student leaders at U of M have protested and stood up for the rights and dignity of Palestinians since Israel’s war in Gaza began nearly 11 months ago. The brutal conflict has resulted in the deaths of more than 40,000 Palestinians and caused the spread of disease and famine in the occupied enclave—following Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the killing of 1,200 Israelis and seizure of hundreds of hostages. The Glen Arbor Sun spoke with Cook about her Leland upbringing, her experiences in Ann Arbor, and how it has felt to attend college in a town that’s once again a hotbed of student activism.

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The Kids are All Right: Honoring student activists and civic leaders in Leelanau County schools

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High school students in communities across the country are taking the lead and raising their voices about causes dear to their generation: gun control, the environment, climate change and gender equality. Here are a few students from Leelanau County’s four public schools who are stepping forward as activist and civic leaders.

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Local students call attention to gun violence in schools

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This morning at 10 a.m., students from several Leelanau County high schools joined a nationwide school walkout on the one-month anniversary of the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.

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