My first byline in Huffington Post!

Published in Huffington Post on March 16, 2013


This article garnered some nice attention in its original placement in Southwest Michigan's Second Wave Media on March 7, 2013. I was very pleased to see Huffington Post pick it up from there: 

Photo by Erik Holladay, erikholladay.com 

This article originally appeared in Southwest Michigan Second Wave.

A kid who would give up recess to make time for another lesson? Never happen.

At Woods Lake Elementary at 3215 Oakland Drive, in the Kids in Tune program, however, that is precisely what did happen. And not just one child made such a choice, but 79 children voted to extend their music lessons rather than go outside to play.

For them, Kids in Tune is play. These children play musical instruments for two-and-a-half hours, four days of the week, as part of the Kids in Tune program, a collaboration of Kalamazoo Public Schools (KPS), Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra and Communities in Schools (CIS) of Kalamazoo. An after-school program launched in the fall of 2011, Kids in Tune is built on the Venezuelan philosophy known as El Sistema, founded by Dr. José Abreu.

"I saw a YouTube video of an orchestra of young people from all walks of life playing instruments, and I started to think about how to reach people in our community," says Elizabeth, or Liz, Youker, education director at Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra and founder of Kids in Tune. "Music changes lives."

Youker found the partners she needed in Woods Lake Elementary, a Magnet Center for the Arts, where she worked with Rachel Boomsma, senior site director for Communities in Schools, to put the music program together.

"It's an extraordinary meld with CIS," says Youker. "The wonderful thing about working with CIS is that we can surround the kids with a web of support, helping them develop social and academic skills along with musical skills. There's a lot of interest now in the concept of resilience, how that's needed in life, and it's fairly inherent in music."

"Resilience is built into music study," echoes Boomsma, who is a thesis shy of her master's degree in music therapy. "Music is fun, but it's also hard work. You have to keep doing it, practice and push through, even when you are good at it."

Children pop in and out of the classroom at Woods Lake Elementary, and they ask Youker and Boomsma about their instruments, about practice sessions, about the recital coming up the next day, when they will perform for their families and other community members. The flow of activity is bustling and constant.

Five hundred children attend Woods Lake Elementary, and the capacity for the Kids in Tune program is 100 with plans to expand. "In terms of demographics," says Boomsma, "about 84 percent are eligible for free or reduced cost lunches. We identify the kids with a strategic need for this program, those who are least likely to have access to music but need it the most."

"The instruments are for the most part made available through grant funding," says Youker. "Some instruments come from KPS, and we will always accept donations."

The walls of the room are lined with instruments. Junior-sized cellos, violins, flutes and clarinets, percussion instruments lined up neatly, waiting to be taken up in the next child's hands. The children, kindergarten through fifth graders, take their chosen instrument and head down the hall to another room for rehearsal. Kids in Tune has started with strings, but the plan is eventually to include all the instruments that comprise an orchestra--even harps, Youker says a little dreamily.

Kids in Tune is music and far more than music. The program includes hot meals and transportation, academic tutoring, group lessons and one-on-one sessions, choir, dance, and the occasional field trip to hear the professionals perform.

"Money can be an obstacle to the arts, of course," says Youker, "but kids can be dealing with all kinds of obstacles, like getting a ride, or just finding the space at home to practice."

"Parents love this opportunity, much more than any other program we've offered," adds Boomsma. "We've actually met ...."

READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE ON HUFFINGTON POST.

To view more of the wonderful photos by Erik Holladay with the original article and video, visit Second Wave. 

Parents are called in for 

One-of-a-kind jams, foraged foods keep elder fires burning

by Zinta Aistars
Published in Southwest Michigan's Second Wave Media
March 14, 2013

Heather Colburn (Photo by Erik Holladay, www.erikholladay.com)

Elder Fire Farm Arts is a small, grass roots operation that says its revolutionizing the food system--through jam. Zinta Aistars talks to Heather Colburn about jams, kimchee and preserving the harvest as long as one can.

Wind your way over ever smaller and smaller roads, from asphalt onto dirt, passing herds of black and white spotted cattle, then a small barn, its boards weathered and gray, showing slices of sunlight between, then still a little farther, a little farther still, bumping along a long two-track driveway, grasses brushing the undercarriage of your car. 

 

There. A house. Two stories built in sections around what was once a one-room cabin. Woods to one side, sloping land to the other, the garden awaiting spring thaw, and the chickens by the coop pecking the earth between clumps of stubborn snow. 

 

This is Elder Fire Farm Arts on 10400 South Gurd Road in Barry County. To Heather Colburn and her three children, this is home. 

 

Inside, the kitchen is fragrant with fresh baked bread. Colburn is lining up jars of jam next to the bread, cut into thick slices on a wooden board. Each jar is different, although all have the wood-cut label of Elder Fire Farm Arts. Atop each jar, handwritten, are the mystical names of the jams inside: Vanilla Ambrosia, Maiden's Voyage, Sunset Spread, Heart of Summer, Elders' Orchard Jelly, Tropical Melon Moon. Shelves in the kitchen are lined with more and more, and also chutneys and marmalades. 

 

Bite in. See if you can do so without humming mmmm. 

 

"We focus on organic and sustainable farming," says Colburn, pulling up a chair. "Although we aren't yet certified." That takes a lot of time, paperwork, and funds, Colburn says, but it's a goal. All the farming practices at Elder Fire Farm Arts, she says, qualify as organic, and the members of her CSA (community supported agriculture) who purchase shares know and trust in that. 

 

In the warm months of gardening, the farm is sustained by the CSA shares, but in cooler months, the jars of jam, of chutneys and marmalades, along with jars of fermented kimchee, kraut, pickled turnips and various other vegetables keep the family fed and the market shelves full. 

 

"We're a family farm dedicated to reclaiming the farmsteading arts and keeping the fires of our elders burning by engaging in skill sharing, minimizing our reliance on industrial systems and distribution, and living well," says Colburn. 

 

The jams, she says, are a kind of food activism. Colburn's "revolution" happens by rescuing food that might otherwise be thrown out or wasted. That is, she gathers what is left unsold at the farmers market, what is left behind in the garden, and what grows in the surrounding woods that can be foraged.

 

"It may not sound appetizing," Colburn says, "but I am capturing waste. I am trying to ..."

READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE ON SECOND WAVE.

A Legacy of Lumber

by Zinta Aistars
Published in Rapid Growth Media
March 14, 2013

KC Weaver at Tontin Lumber (Photo by Adam Bird, www.adambirdphoto.com)

Tontin Lumber has been in business for over 30 years, but it was a serendipitous conversation with a truck driver and a commitment to local sustainability that has allowed the family-owned business to survive the economic downtown and thrive today.

"Funny thing happened on the way to retirement…," Daryl Weaver begins, but then he gets distracted.


A client just walked into Tontin Lumber, Inc. (565 Godfrey SW in Grand Rapids). No, an old friend. Both, actually. By now, after 30 years of business, most of Tontin Lumber, Inc.'s, clients are old friends. Weaver rises from his desk and shoulders up to his client, his friend, and the two head back into the recesses of the building, where the woodsy scent of sawdust powders the air and the machines send up a rhythmic roar.

KC Weaver takes over. That's KC, his first name, he explains, which stands for nothing but KC. "When I sign up for online sites like Facebook or LinkedIn, they tell me that's not a real name," he chuckles. KC is Daryl's eldest son, part time at Tontin Lumber, part time at Grand Rapids Community College where he teaches American history. When he sits down at his desk, made of Tontin lumber, he is living history.

"I've been running around this place since I was a kid," the younger Weaver says. "Playing with adding machines, telling people they're fired." Another chortle.

Pride is evident, alongside the penchant in father and son to do things in an original way. Do it in a unique way or die, that's a lesson they learned here at the beginning, but relearned in 2008, when the economy nationwide took a serious dive.

"2008 hit us extremely hard," Weaver says. The 50,000 square foot building nearly went silent. Originally a space for eight businesses, the elder Weaver had rented a small corner, then expanded, then kept expanding, finally buying the entire building. Producing lumber was a good business -- until it wasn't.

"We had a trucker drive in and ask if he could park his rig here," Weaver says. He points at the immense logs still present in the parking lot, stacked high. They are called butt logs, the first log cut above the stump of a tree, darker and denser that the rest of the tree. "The trucker asked about all of these butt logs, what we do with them."

Weaver points to a section of a log where the bark has chipped away. Beneath the bark, the wood is marked with a crazy, wiggling pattern. "That's from the ash borer. It's an insect that kills the tree, but leaves good lumber beneath."

The trucker asked if he could take the logs away, musing that someone might have use for them. An idea was born. As a sideline to keep the business alive, Tontin Lumber collected downed trees that the City of Grand Rapids had been grinding up into sawdust after the trees died from ash borer disease.

"We have always catered to the local market, instilling the mantra of keeping money within Michigan at every turn," says Weaver. "With the economic downturn, we needed new solutions to old problems. One of the ideas entailed seeking out ...

READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE AT RAPID GROWTH MEDIA.