Community Services/Resources Archives

Second Chances

Dec 22, 2025 | Community, Community Services/Resources, Featured, Government, News, Nonprofits |

After forty-three years, eleven months, and twenty-three days, Billy Cole was released from prison. It was 2019 and he found himself scrambling, trying to find his footing. He took on factory work, delivery work, anything he could find to bring in money and avoid returning to prison.

Creating a Dementia-Friendly Community

Dec 22, 2025 | Community, Community Services/Resources, Nonprofits |

“Dementia is not only emotionally upsetting, it’s literally life-changing—and not just for the people diagnosed,” says Jim Mangi. “Most people who are thrust into a job as a caregiver have no idea how best to handle the situation.”

SNAP Judgment

Nov 23, 2025 | Community, Community Services/Resources, Featured |

On a chilly mid-November Wednesday morning, volunteers from Food Gatherers assembled in a parking lot at Briarwood Mall, outside JCPenney. It was the second in a series of four hastily announced food distributions following a freeze in federal food benefits.

From Confinement to Connection

Oct 6, 2025 | Community, Community Services/Resources, Featured |

Something was off about Kevin. He was affectionate and cheerful like most toddlers, his mother Kerry Kafafian recalls, but “he was doing a movement which we later understood to be a seizure.” A pediatric neurologist determined that he had Lennox–Gastaut syndrome, a rare form of epilepsy that causes severe cognitive impairment.

Internet Fraud and Its Victims

Jul 25, 2025 | Community, Community Services/Resources, Featured |

At ten o’clock on a Sunday night, my eighty-six-year-old mother received a call from a girl who sounded like my daughter, then a college student. Crying, the caller said that she had gone to Canada with friends, their car had broken down, and they were stranded without money. Could Grammie please wire $700 right away, so they could get back to campus?

Thriving Thrift

Jan 27, 2025 | Community, Community Services/Resources, Nonprofits |

Founded in the midst of the Great Depression to help mothers and children in need, the nonprofit shop’s mission and territory have expanded greatly since then. Once confined to residents of the city of Ann Arbor, its outreach now encompasses the entire county and all neighbors facing crises, whether they are unemployed, underemployed, struggling with substance or physical abuse, or confronting health-related challenges.

Jim Toy Center Is Back

Nov 25, 2024 | Community, Community Services/Resources, News, Uncategorized |

This month, the Rainbow Readers Book Club will hold its first meeting at the center’s new home at 560 S. Main St. The blue house across from the Union Rec restaurant is owned by Greyfort Development, Wickfield’s real estate holding company.

Pet Pals Mutual Aid

Aug 15, 2024 | Community, Community Services/Resources |

Pet Pals, a grassroots group of five volunteers, helps unhoused and housing-insecure people care for their pets by providing pet food, litter, and other supplies, as well as spay/neuter vouchers, hotel rooms during extreme weather, and other support.

Bicentennial Investments

May 24, 2024 | Community, Community Services/Resources, Government, News |

The James L. Crawford Elks Lodge has a commanding presence at the northeast end of Sunset Rd., high on a hill overlooking the Huron River. The substantial brick-and-stone building has been a pillar of Ann Arbor’s Black community for eight decades.

MIFarmLink

May 24, 2024 | Community, Community Services/Resources, Environment, News |

Dohner compares MIFarmLink to “a matchmaking service that connects farmland owners and seekers who would otherwise never meet.” According to the Conservation District, land access is the greatest barrier for beginning farmers; meanwhile most farmland owners lack a succession plan. MIFarmLink neatly solves the problem with an online tool that lets owners list their available properties and farmland seekers post their professional profiles.