Category Archives: charities

charities, Events

Sweet September

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Maypole and tango are just two of the many dances at Dancing in the Streets. (Photo: © Vickie Elmer)

September brings back to school schedules and cooler evenings, yet there’s still beautiful days and events to savor.

We are going to three of them this month and want you to come along. They are:

Sept. 6 – Dancing in the Streets.  Learn to dance an array of international dances, or enjoy music and dance from Main Street.  If you feel adventurous, try Cajun-Zydeco or belly dancing. Or swing and English country dancing may be more your style.  We will be right in the center of the festival, starting around 12:30 so you can enjoy some treats before you move your feet.

Sept. 13 – Kerrytown Book Festival . Held in the Farmers Market, this festival is a great place to meet authors and small publishers. We will be on our sidewalk outside 303 Detroit Street with a make a book mark activity and lots of sweet treats.

Sept. 13 – Monarch Migration Festival at Leslie Science and Nature Center.  This ticketed event features games, educational activities and a chance to help the monarchs on their journey south.

Then it will be one or two more Saturdays and the Italian ice cart goes dark by the end of September. Order your quarts so you won’t be without if Indian summer visits us in October.

This year, we expect to return with roasted chestnuts grown in Michigan a few times in November and December. So watch our Facebook page for announcements of those events. When the weather turns cold, we are glad to join your company’s holiday party with this distinctive holiday treat.

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.

charities, Summer in Ann Arbor

Lucky 7 launches with Peace & Dancing

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Dancing brings people together and encourages joy and creativity. (MorgueFile photo)

This weekend, we start our Lucky 7 charity events – and you, our guests are fortunate indeed.

For you will not only enjoy our company and our delicious made-in-Detroit Italian ice on Saturday and Sunday, but you will give to two worthwhile non-profits – and find joy right by our silver cart.

Saturday, we support Peace Neighborhood Center.  Since 1971, Peacehas provided  family and youth services to low-income and at-risk individuals and families from summer camps to tutoring to crisis assistance. Peace people will be with us on Detroit Street in Kerrytown from 9 to noon. And to make the day more magical, Gordon

Gordo the Magician will join us on Saturday morning. (Photo: courtesy Gordon Schott)

Schott, or Gordo the Magician,will join us, with his mix of tricks and balloon animals.

Sunday, we support Dancing in the Streets. This  event takes over Main Street downtown 1 – 7 and teaches us swing dance, waltz, English country dance and more.  Or watch belly dancing or join the “Do the Hustle” flash mob at 1:45 p.m.

For several years, we’ve donated to Ann Arbor Community of Traditional Music & Dance, the all-volunteer organization that produces Dancing in the Streets.   Children’s art activities and an instrument “zoo” plus a maypole make this a fun family day.  Volunteer to help with set-up or tear down too.  (Note: The photo is not from Dancing, though it almost could be.)

If this sounds like a joyful opportunity for community support, Mity Nice still needs more performers and musicians for the rest of our charity events. Join the fun-raisers by emailing us at busker@mitynice.com.

So please come out both days – and please plan to show up during the week too to support The Breakfast at St. Andrews (on Wednesday) or FLY Art Center (Friday afternoon). Check our full schedule of Lucky 7 charities or watch our Facebook for other details.

It’s going to be a sweet, sweet charitable Labor Day Weekend!

 

charities, Events, Summer in Ann Arbor

Sweet charity series

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Mity Nice believes in charity and giving back – in our daily operations and after we tally up any profits at yearend.

This year, we’re planning a fall charity fun-raiser – for seven charities!  This is a big undertaking for a little company,  yet we can’t help but feel excited and hopeful: We want to raise awareness, raise new volunteers – and donate a healthy share of our total sales each day to good local causes.

Here’s the schedule of charities:

While we have the charities, we still are looking for some fun for this fun-raiser – street musicians, performers, sidewalk poets or magicians who will join us. Interested? Drop us a line at busker@mitynice.com and let us know what charities and what days you’d like to play.
Even if you couldn’t dance or play music in public, you can participate. Share details of our fun-raiser with your friends – and bring a bunch of them down. Buy a pineapple Italian ice or a lemonade, an Italian soda or a Maize & Blueberry muffin – and we will give to the cause of the day.
Join us for seven days of sweet charity!