Category Archives: Events

Events, Summer in Ann Arbor

Start of our summer schedule

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Waiting for the Independence Day Parade to start in 2013 with Tea Haus friends.

Summertime is a season of plenty. And we will be part of plenty of good community events and art fairs this year.  We’re still adding events but here’s an early look at the joyful and delicious events for 2016:

June 12 – Grillin’ – the delicious fundraiser for Food Gatherers. Buy your ticket now – and provide lots of                     meals through soup kitchens, senior centers and more.

June 29 – Mity Nice Friends & Family Free Day. Like us on Facebook and you lick us for free!

July 4 – Independence Day Parade.  A fun community celebration produced by the Jaycees in downtown                  Ann Arbor.  Starts at 10, but arrive by 9:15 for best seating.

July 10 – Huron River Day. Come savor life, music, kayaking on the river. Fun family event produced by                    the Park Department.

July 18 –  Townie Party.  Music, youth art, food, fun and more to warm up for the Art Fair.

July 21-24 — Ann Arbor Art Fair.

Aug. 6 & 7 –  Belle Isle Art Fair in Detroit

In between all this, we are available for company picnics, family reunions and summer celebrations, weddings, bat mitzvahs, block parties and more.  We like backyard and park and neighborhood fun as well as the big events!

Art Fair 2013, near the Diag.
Art Fair 2013, near the Diag.

 

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.

Events, Summer in Ann Arbor

Why we adore the Ann Arbor Art Fair

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Our Art Fair booth in 2013. The pinwheels attracted a lot of attention – and so did the mango ice!

For our first few years, the Ann Arbor Art Fair kept us in business.

We earned enough to pay our teen workers for August and September, and often enough to provide for sidewalk rental, health license and insurance renewals and other costs to start the next year.

The Art Fair remains a big helping of our business, and also a great source of joy. We dance at the Townie Party and we serve the artists of The Original Art Fair free ice. We hire extra teen workers – some of whom stick around for a year or two afterward.

We buy art, take naps in the Diag and see old friends who are back in town for the annual extravaganza.

This year you’ll find us on North University near Ingalls Mall – just a block or so away from our State Street location of the last few years. Art Fair runs 10-9 Wednesday through Friday and 10-6 Saturday.

Stop by, say hello — and cool off!

Events, Summer in Ann Arbor

Special event schedule

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We have a Mity Nice summer ahead, and we want you to come along.

We head to parks and to the Ann Arbor Art Fair, to dance festivals, book fests and one celebrating a special orange butterfly.

Here’s a schedule of special events that are open to all and so sweet that you really should not miss them:

July 12th – Huron River Day at Gallup Park. Rent a canoe, visit the children’s art and science tent and learn about the river.  Free music and more 12-4 p.m.

July 13th – Townie Street Party. This annual celebration kicks off Art Fair with music, children’s arts and crafts and local organizations. 5-9:30 p.m.

July 15-18th — Ann Arbor Art Fair. Find us in the Original – on North University near Ingalls Mall. Look for our red, white and green umbrella!

Aug. 2 – Fairy Festival at the Sunday Artisan Market. We founded this family celebration of fairy doors and fairies and now the Artisans will plan some fun activities.

Sept. 6 – Dancing in the Streets.  Learn to dance an array of international dances, or enjoy music and dance from Main Street.

Sept. 13 – Kerrytown Book Festival (tentative). Held in the Farmers Market, this festival is a great place to meet authors and small publishers.

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.

We started our summer season at Grillin’ – the Food Gatherers picnic with a purpose – and also were part of the Ann Arbor Book Festival Street Fair in mid-June and the Jaycee’s 4th of July parade. We’d love to be part of your company or church picnic too!

In between all these big events we love to go to company picnics and special events and family reunions and celebrations.

 

Events

Booking it for volunteers

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Mity Nice loves books – and book festivals! (Morguefile Photo)

Mity Nice has been a supporter of the Kerrytown Book Festival for several years.

We give all the volunteers a free Italian ice and sometimes stage arts and crafts activities related to books.

This year, we’re going to the Ann Arbor Book Festival Street Fair on Saturday. And we’re glad to donate ice to its volunteers too.

We give to these organizations for three reasons: First we love people who volunteer in the community and we want to support volunteerism.

Second, we adore books. (Both owners are big readers. Vickie is a writer who considered a career as a librarian and Mark has been part of National Novel Writing Month.) For a couple of years, we even held ‘storytime on the steps’ for children visiting Kerrytown.

Third, it’s in our DNA and mission to support local charities and causes. In all we support a dozen or more local charities each year with donations and checks. Youth, education and literacy is one focus of our giving. If your charity fits our criteria drop us a line at least four weeks before the event and we’ll consider booking it into your cause.

So stop by on Saturday afternoon on Washington Street and support the company who supports the volunteers. Or stop by and buy a mango ice and a marvelous book!

 

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, 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!
Events, Mity Nice news, Summer in Ann Arbor

A busy beautiful time for us!

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Singer / songwriter Joe Reilly will perform at the Leslie Science & Nature Center on Saturday. We’re supporting the fundraiser. (Photo by Chad Skeers)

While summertime means a slower pace for many, we are in our busiest two weeks of the year – and looking forward to every minute of it.

Well, every minute we don’t float away as happened during the Ann Arbor Art Fair a couple of years ago.  (Our booth on Liberty literally filled with a river of water and we lost a few things, carried downstream in the deluge.) We don’t mind a few sprinkles, especially first thing in the morning, and we do bring our umbrella to almost all our special events

So  you can find us at all the fun, here’s a rundown of our whereabouts:

  • Saturday, July 13 – We’ve mastered the twice as nice arrangement. So we will be on Detroit Street 9-3ish and then will send our mini-cart to the Leslie Science and Nature Center for singer and songwriter Joe Reilly’s concert. Tickets are still available for Songs for Scholarships. The concert starts at 11 a.m. and you may want to come early, to visit the owls or the Critter House.
  • Sunday, July 14 – Huron River Day at Gallup Park takes us to a beautiful place for canoeing, kayaking and learning about the river. There’s a marvelous science and arts tent for children (and we’re hoping we’re allowed to set up nearby). The event runs 12-4, but we’ll arrive a little early in case you need a refreshment after the morning 5K run/walk. We are bringing some strawberry lemonade – and strawberry Italian ice (another way we’re twice as nice)
  • Monday, July 15 – The Townie Street Party.Come hear the MacPodz and other bands. Or make a paper hat or a tile with Motawi. This party takes place on East Washington and Ingalls Mall and is a local favorite in its ninth year. We’re there with Tea Haus so you could enjoy an Arnold Palmer.

    Mity Nice staff on crazy hat day during Art Fair 2012.
  • Wednesday, July 17 – Saturday, July 20 – Ann Arbor Art Fair in all its glory. Look for our Tweet and our Facebook post on the exact location; likely on State Street.  We serve muffins in the morning and Italian ice and drinks all day and evening long. Plus we will debut …. the Mity Nice brownies and will bring along some gluten free and vegan goodies from Tasty Bakery so everyone can enjoy.
  • Sunday, July 21 – 12-3 p.m. back on Detroit Street. It’s National Ice Cream Day and we want to be part of it, even though we’re a dairy free and vegan treat.  This is also the day to shop with the Sunday Artisan Market, which gives you an appetizer portion of great art and craft – many of them locals.

We’ve already started making our Maize & Blueberry muffins and are picking up the lemons from Eastern Market tomorrow for the fresh-squeezed lemonade.  Our half tip jar for July will go to two charities – Ozone House and one to be chosen by our Mity Nice team.

Hope to see you at one or two or three of these places. It will be Mity Nice to see some familiar faces amid the sea of visitors to Ann Arbor!

Events, Mity Nice news, Photos

Fairies in the city, in the woods – and in our festival!

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A very old fairy house (Photo by Vickie Elmer)

 

We spotted this ancient fairy home in a woodsy garden in Detroit. And we knew we had to share it with you, as a reminder always to  watch carefully for fairies and their hats, homes and treats.

You may know that three sister fairies lives in our cart and create their version of Italian ice. (That’s where we get our Fairy Ice, though they don’t part with it often or easily.) And we’re sure you know they live in a variety of places in Ann Arbor, and in

The second Mity Nice fairy door, made in Ann Arbor

Plymouth, Chelsea, Ypsilanti, andRoyal Oak, too.

But did you know that at least three fairy families were spotted in Palmer Park this spring? And that others settled in Detroit, on Belle Isle and in other woodsy areas, aeons ago?  No wonder then that Mity Nice is seriously considering a second location – in the D. We already buy our Italian ice from a lovely old Detroit company.

Naturally we love Ann Arbor – our home turf and a city that appreciates vegan treats and joyful times.  So we will stay firmly rooted in Kerrytown and on Main Street, and expand from there.

Speaking of expand, our third annual Fairies & Fairy Door Festival will grow this year and will take place in September. A lot of details are still being worked on, but the date is either Saturday, Sept. 21 or Saturday, Sept. 28, in a location not far from our cart and the fairy’s ice shop.

And yes, we have heard some of those Detroit fairies plan to fly in for the Fairies & Fairy Door Festival!

 

 

 

 

Events, Mity Nice news

Circling in on our Mysterious Sunday event

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The last Second Sunday of the season is fast approaching and there’s still so much you don’t know about it.

That, my friends, is because it’s called All Things Mysterious.

And so there are mystery guests aplenty, some of them may even show up magically and entertain us. Others may want you to guess their identity.

We expect some seasonal circles to show up too – some orange ones and some red and organic. Can you figure out what they are?

We know there will be a lot of surprises and some mysteries to solve, but there are a few facts you want to know:

  • All Things Mysterious runs 11:30 to 3 p.m., with most activities and guests from 1 to 3 p.m. at the Sunday Artisan Market and the Mity Nice cart on Detroit Street. First games commence at 11:30 and the Arts & Crafts Table opens at noon.
  • Our charity is the Leslie Science & Nature Center, a good friend and a great place to learn about Michigan creatures and take a nature walk. Francie will bring a few birds, including an owl, to Mysterious Day.
  • Mity Nice will offer a variety of  “sweet treats from the streets” – well, our cart really is on the sidewalk just outside the Farmers Market.  We’ll have cookies and muffins and some banana bread; Mindo Chocolates and Tea Haus tea as well as our Italian ice and lemonade, so please bring your appetite and a few dollars.  (We donate a percent of sales to Leslie Science Center, so the treats are doubly sweet.)
  • Our main sponsor is Second to None, a Kerrytown business that provides mystery shopping for many retailers.
  • Almost all or fun family activities are free, but we do ask for donations at the Arts & Crafts Table this month so we can replenish our supplies. (Half of the donations will go directly to Leslie.)

This event is coming up fast, and we don’t want it to be so mysterious that people miss out on it. So please share with a friend or neighbor or Tweet about the birds and fun! See you Sunday.