Concerts That Break Down Barriers
UCMC founder and executive director Allyson Cohen envisions a world where “everyone has access to exceptional musical performances and feels included and valued in classical spaces.”
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Nonprofits
Friendships That Transcend Age
Nineteen-year-old U-M student Selena Cooper and seventy-nine-year-old Mary Gliedt meet up most weeks to hang out and chat at Gliedt’s apartment at Brecon Village Senior Living. Over the past year, even though sixty years separate them in age, they’ve become friends.
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Words With Friends
Results from the 2025 Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress (M-STEP) show that 60 percent of Washtenaw County’s third-graders categorized as economically disadvantaged—including those who qualify for free or reduced-price meals, whose families receive food aid, and foster children, among other categories—scored in the lowest level for English Language Arts, compared with 26 percent of all students. Narrowing such disparities requires interventions with individual students that schools may not be equipped to handle on their own.
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A Friend to the Community Since 1970
House by the Side of the Road began in 1970 as a partnership between the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners and fifteen local churches that had been providing clothing and housewares for neighbors in need.
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Scouts Honored
All five of Ann Arbor’s first female BSA Scouts have earned their Eagle rank.
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Pomonapalooza Rocks On
In 2022, neighbors Chris Wolff, Shannon Zager, and Dorothy Gotlib decided to throw a party across their three front yards. It seemed like a fun way to reconnect with their neighborhood after the pandemic, and Pomonapalooza was born.
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Next Stop for a Small-Town Wonder?
On March 1, the Kiwanis Thrift Sale received a stunning donation from Don Butcher: a handmade replica of the 1950s-era Ann Arbor railroad he crafted himself over sixteen years. At 720 square feet, the model is big enough to fill a three-car garage.
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Second Chances
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.
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Creating a Dementia-Friendly Community
“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.”
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Ballet & Books
“I was really fascinated by the fact that all these kids were really great storytellers but weren’t really good readers,” recalls Bailes, now a U-M medical student. Once back in the United States, she began working with a pediatrician at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital to better understand how to keep kids who are falling behind on track to learn to read. She thought, “Why can’t dance and literacy come together to get kids excited about reading and learning?”
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Onward, Robots
Since 2008, Liberty St. has been home to what may be Ann Arbor’s ultimate “if you know, you know” secret: Liberty Street Robot Supply & Repair.
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Flower Ladies
Flower Therapy at Mott Hospital, the oldest activity of the Ann Arbor Farm & Garden Association, started in the 1950s. The program has always been entirely staffed by volunteers, with flowers donated by local grocery stores, florists, and a flower farm.
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Library Lot Referendum Heats Up
As the increasingly bitter campaign over the future of the downtown library races to a close, both sides are spending the final days before Tuesday’s election making their cases by going door to door, flooding social media, and pushing targeted ads through mail and online platforms.
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Big Book Sale
“It’s probably the biggest sale in town,” says bookseller Gene Alloway. He plans to line up early on Friday, September 5, when the three-day event begins at WCC’s Morris Lawrence Building. “The books are in fine shape,” says the owner of Motte & Bailey Booksellers, “and they have lots of different subjects.”
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Driver’s Ed for All
Three Pioneer High School moms have joined forces to fund driver’s education classes for thirty-six Pioneer students in the upcoming school year. It’s a pilot project for their new Drive Forward Foundation, which aspires to provide fully funded driver’s education for underserved students throughout Washtenaw County.
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Voices from Prison
The connection she’s seeing is between incarcerated people and their children. As a volunteer and board member at large with a nonprofit called Staying in Closer Touch, she records women in the Huron Valley Correctional Facility reading children’s books aloud. Those waiting their turn use markers and crayons to create cards for their child or grandchild. Pilutti says it’s “very powerful to witness.”
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Warriors and Caregivers
A Vietnam veteran and Ford Motor Company retiree, Kinzinger has been helping other veterans for around thirty-five years, including raising money for the Washtenaw County Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the Ann Arbor VA Medical Center. Now his focus is on Warriors and Caregivers United (WACU), a nonprofit that prioritizes supporting returning veterans, their caregivers, and their families.
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Little Break
“When I said that to a random mom one time, she started crying,” the U-M Stamps grad continues. “She was like, ‘How am I doing? No one’s asked me that!’ And that’s what Mamas Network is about.”
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Doomsday Planning
“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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Thriving Thrift
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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