Monthly Archives: September 2014

charities, Events, Kerrytown news

Lucky 7: Breakfast and Art, Birds and Books

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This young woman is serving oatmeal at The Breakast. (The Breakfast at St. Andrews photo)

Next up on the Lucky 7 charities are two organizations that feed the body and the creative soul – and then two others that bring the world to us.

On Wednesday, we celebrate and support The Breakfast at St. Andrews.  It offers a free morning meal 365 days a year, serving oatmeal and muffins and more to 90 to 150 people daily.  The Breakfast, established in 1982, operates from a church basement on Division, just a few blocks from our Kerrytown space. Vickie has volunteered and written aboutthe organization for The Ann Arbor Observer  and continues to back its good food and good community.

FLY goes to schools in Ypsilanti and beyond to bring out the young artists. (FLY Art Center photo)

On Friday, we support and celebrate FLY Art Center.  FLY  encourages creativity and self-expression through art camps, events and bringing its art activities on the road. It also brings art projects to a variety of elementary schools.   Come to our Main Street location – near Washington – from 3 to 7 p.m.

Then we have a weekend of charitable wonder – those who give us a window into a bigger, beautiful world:

On Saturday, our friends at the Leslie Science & Nature Center come out to Kerrytown, and if all goes well they may bring along an owl or another creature.  Leslie gives thousands of people, young and old, the chance to experience nature and learn about animals – leaving Ann Arbor. It offers field trips, summer camps,a “Fall Flight” and “Star party” and much more.  Our Leslie hours are 9-12, though we’ll sell Italian ice until 2:30.

Sunday we’re out for the Kerrytown Book Festival and oour Lucky 7 charity is Washtenaw Literacy. (We’re also giving free Italian ice to each Book Fest volunteer, but that’s a separate sweetness.)  Each year, Washtenaw Literacy trains volunteer tutors who help others start or improve their reading and writing abilities. In 2012, Washtenaw Literacy worked with 1,800 adult learners.  We’re serving ice on Sunday around 10:30 to 4:30.

Our final charity fun-raiser – for this year anyway – will be Wednesday, Sept. 10. The charity remains a mystery (for a while longer anyway). So please show up on Detroit Street in Kerrytown for our finale!

 

charities, Mity Nice news

Why we dive in the deep end of charity

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Volunteers at Grillin’ 2013 just before the fundraiser started. (Food Gatherers photo)

Mity Nice is committed to supporting at least a dozen charities and local organizations each summer and fall as our way of making our world a little sweeter.

We have a few every-year causes that we support well, every year, including Food Gatherers and Groundcover News. (We’ve been at Food Gathers’ summer fundraiser Grillin’  for almost every year we’ve been in business.) And we add in a variety of other causes., all from the Ann Arbor – Detroit – Ypsilait area.

So why do we give so often and to so many nonprofits?

We would rather donate to charities than spend on marketing and promotions. We always feel we’re in such good company when a charity is our partner, and when we are helping a good cause.  We want to be a social enterprise and encourage volunteering and generosity.

Plus as co-founder Vickie Elmer often says: “Whe you name your company Mity Nice, you must do Mity Nice things all the time.”  Later this fall, we’re going to share a compilation of those kind things our crew has done.

Right now we’re focused on raising support and increasing the volunteers for an array of charities. So please come out for our Lucky 7 charity series – and bring along your appetite and a friend or three.