#16 Bizarre Bazaar - Easttown Community Association

Do you live in an amazing community? I do!! While continuing on this birthday adventure, I have been able to experience many great communities. One of my favorite is Easttown in Grand Rapids, MI. This area is full of eclectic little shops and restaurants. It has a great welcoming feel. It is just a lot of FUN! Easttown Community Association has one main mission, they are dedicated to building, backing, and broadening community through proactive neighboring and community improvement. One of the many ways they do that is with street fairs held throughout the summer. They have many events throughout the year to bring this community together. If you ever go over to Easttown, you will definitely see the fruits of their labor. While this is not my community, I can say this, I surely felt welcome there :) If you would like to experience this you should consider volunteering at one of their future events. You can contact them at http://eastown.org/

#15 Festival of the Arts...GRAND RAPIDS ART MUSEUM!!! So today was the kickoff of Festival of the Arts. It also happened to be my kids last day of school. What a fun day :) Have you ever wanted to be part of something bigger than yourself? Today we got that opportunity. Alexis joined me this time. Our job today was to encourage the festival goers to create art of their own. The Grand Rapids Art Museum provided coasters, duct tape (all different colors) and sharpies. People were encouraged to create "quilt squares" to be added to a community quilt. All of the art created this weekend and in the weeks to come will be put together and displayed on a wall in the lower level of the museum in the future. We met some amazing people today. And just imagine all the artistic creations we witnessed today. We saw kids, adults and YES even teenagers come and create with us. It was great. It is such a neat project to allow ANYONE to come and be part of a community project. I can't think of a better representation of the people around us then the collaboration of all these pieces of art. The Grand Rapids Art Museum is an amazing place. You wouldn't believe how many opportunities there are to volunteer with the GRAM. If you are interested, please contact them at http://www.artmuseumgr.org/joinandgive/volunteers/