Monthly Archives: May 2013

Mity Nice news

Bicyclists welcome! We believe in biking around A2

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Our cart moves on two heavy-duty bicycle wheels. Here it’s stopped on Main Street.

During National Bike to Work Week, we figured it was time to confess something important:

We ride around Ann Arbor on bicycle wheels all the time.

Our cart, a beauty made by Worksman in Queens, N.Y., is outfitted with two heavy duty bicycle wheels. They only need inflating once a year. And it makes pushing a loaded cart uphill well… a sweet exercise.

Our mini-cart, created by our friend and handy-woman Laura, also has two bicycle wheels  though they’re from a child’s bike. It shows up at parties and private events, and sometimes during Art Fair.

We’ve had a bazillion customers bicycle up and buy an Italian ice or fresh-squeezed lemonade too. OK, so that might be an imaginary number, but our fairy friends use it all the time to talk about stars and dandelions and such. Anyway, our friends and customers usually stay a while to finish their treat before cycling off into the city.

Anyone who wants to stay or wander in our ‘hoods, there’s bicycle racks near both of our primary sidewalk spaces:

  • The one on Main at Washington gets a good workout from employees in the First National Building.
  • The one on Detroit Street near Catherine is popular on Farmers Market days. It looks like giant carrots! 

We usually add a third location – and we’ll be sure it’s in a bike friendly locale.

So if you have a sweet bicycling or a Mity Nice two-wheel tale to share, please drop by our cart – or drop it in a comment right here!

 

If you want more information on bicycling to work check out the Commuter Challenge ideas or  the League of American Bicyclists, which declares May Bike Month.

Also read our owner’s other post on what to pack and plan before you begin.

Summer in Ann Arbor

Summer’s sweet opportunities to give back

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Summertime in Ann Arbor has such beauty, such a lot of sweetness.

Yet all the fun and good times don’t come without a lot of work – and a lot of support.

Mity Nice tries to be a good citizen by donating Italian ice to charities. We donate to more than a dozen fundraisers and special events – and we give a free ice to everyone who marches in the Ann Arbor Jaycees’ 4th of July Parade.

Not everyone can come up with 700 servings of Italian ice in 45 to 50 minutes. But everyone can chip in and help make summertime better by donating time or money. Here’s a handful of sweet summer causes in Ann Arbor:

  • Send a kid to camp.  A nonprofit group called Summer Camp Scholarships wants to send fourth and fifth graders from low-income families to camp this summer.  They say $200 will buy ten duffel bags and ten sleeping bags and $400 will send one kid to camp for a week. (The camps are several area YMCA camps, which contribute a portion of the cost too.) The all-volunteer group also is looking for more people to help out – and this that we hope to join.
  • Dance and song. Sponsor the Ann Arbor Summer Festival Top of the Park. Someday maybe there will be a Mity Nice street performer’s evening or a Mity Nice children’s movie and dance night  But for now, we’re asking you to give a little. Anyone can become a supporter of this great event – and if you’re a Patron who gives $250 to 499, you’ll get invited to the season’s announcement party and receive a pack of ‘I Gave’ stickers to wear. Those are some of the coolest summer accessories.
  • Make Main Street bloom. Three blocks of Main Street are the home of 46 planter beds, places where flowers and trees grow and people sit and sip lemonade or enjoy some soup from Le Dog.  The Main Street Association hires a landscaper to plant flowers and maintain them. “The tree roots absorb all the water and nutrients from the soil, and visitors are quite rough on them,” said Maura Thomson, director of the business association. For $500 anyone can sponsor the posies for a year.  She figures they will have about 20 flower beds available to be adopted.
  • Volunteer in the parks.  You could Adopt-A-Park or help clean up the Huron River or build a blue bird box. There are other opportunities too, and many o fthem show up on VolunteerWashtenaw.
  • Bring free Italian ice to a charity or community.  OK, this is a little enlightened self interest. But we would just love to find a corporation or two or someone with deep pockets who wants to make summer more delightful at Peace Neighborhood Center or a public housing project, and will underwrite free ice for all. We’d also be glad to do this right outside your business, too, as long as we can invite in some young people too.
We will highlight a couple of other sweet opportunities too:
If you love art or artists, the Ann Arbor Street Art Fair and its siblings all need volunteers this spring and summer. Host an artist, help out with children’s activities and more volunteering available.  We donate some time and some Italian ice.
If you want go go on a’picnic with a purpose’  tickets for Grillin’ – a luscious fundraiser for Food Gatherers -are on sale. They need volunteers for the event, and we’ve already raised our scooping arm. Mity Nice will be out in the children’s area with the games – and we hope to see you there!

Copyright © Mity Nice 2013