“We’re dealing with an insane amount of mental health issues and anxiety from our residents,” says Derrick Miller, executive director of the Community Action Network. CAN’s seven community centers provide everything from after-school programs to housing support and emergency food pantries, and its clients are reeling from the Trump administration’s budget cuts.
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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.
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By the time the first snowflakes fell in mid-November, 1,537 local children were wearing new winter clothes provided by Warm the Children. “We’re clothing more children than we have in many years,” says program manager Mary Stewart. “The children we serve are from all over Washtenaw County—Ann Arbor, Milan, Dexter, Saline, Chelsea, and Ypsilanti, as well as the townships—and the need is growing.”
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Dorrie Dils became president and CEO of Gift of Life Michigan in 2016. At the time, she says, the Ann Arbor–based agency was “averaging about 280 organ donors a year.” The number has since more than doubled, to 578 last year.
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In January 2023, when Lydia Goff was working on her Master of Social Work at the U-M, she met two classmates: Wolverine quarterback Jack Tuttle and center Drake Nugent (now on the San Francisco 49ers). Goff was a longtime volunteer with Best Buddies, an organization dedicated to ending the isolation of those with IDD by pairing college students and community members with people with disabilities for one-on-one interactions and by hosting monthly events for everyone involved.
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Alcindor runs the Faculty of Nursing Science of the Episcopal University of Haiti (FSIL in French). With help from the Ann Arbor–based Haiti Nursing Foundation, she’s led it through hurricanes, earthquakes, Covid, and the country’s descent into political chaos since its president was assassinated three years ago. In that power vacuum, heavily armed gangs have kidnapped thousands of people and held them for ransom.
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“Sending kids to camp is an investment in our communities,” says Sally Lamkin, director emeritus of what’s now Washtenaw Camp Placement (WCP).
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When public health prof Vic Strecher was asked to emcee the Big Hearts for Seniors fundraiser in 2018, “I didn’t know all that much about it,” he admits.
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Peter “Madcat” Ruth was fifteen when he first heard blues duo Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry on...
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American shelters killed 690,000 dogs and cats last year—up 19 percent from 2022 and the highest...
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The 501(c)(3) charity has given scholarships to more than 500 students, but lately, “we were...
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United Way of Washtenaw County executive director Pam Smith was speaking to 250 supporters packed...
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“Since 2020, food banks and low-income families have been fraught with uncertainty,” says Markell...
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“We are fiercely against declaw,” emails Tanya Hilgendorf, president and CEO of the Humane Society...
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Following a rocky post-pandemic recovery, the Fresh Start clubhouse for adults dealing with mental...
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On a cloudless summer day, children shriek with glee as they take turns sliding down a tree trunk,...
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Each Wednesday, seventy-one-year-old Phil Huhn and seventy-two-year-old Barbara Steer volunteer at...
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“This is a gigantic beehive of activity,” says a volunteer proudly as she scurries through the...
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Sponsored Article Mothers of young children will often say that parenting is one of the most...
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