EVERY idea from this last event was amazing- so hard to narrow it down! Although we could only give away 1 or 2 grants, community support is HUGE. So, we wanted to share all of them with you, so you could get involved, support, or know more!
COLLEEN SHULL
[email protected] www.colleenshull.com
What is your GOOD IDEA?: “Art is a powerful way to help process the world around you and to help you understand yourself better.” I want to share the power of art as a force of beauty, discovery, and positive change with the community. I will do this by providing small group and individualized visual art instruction and mentorship from my professional working artist studio and on-location. My goal is to provide a welcoming creative setting where people can be free to explore and create visual art, and to discover themselves in the process.
How would your idea make you COME ALIVE?
I believe in helping others by utilizing my core strengths as an artist and educator. Sharing art and the joy of creating with others makes me (and those involved) come alive! The pandemic has made me realize just how much this is needed and desired by many people.
I am a creative, compassionate, curious, supportive educator who is committed to the value of art in the community. I have a Master of Fine Arts and many years of experience teaching a range of ages at university art programs, private art programs across the country, and locally at Interlochen Arts academy, Arts 4 All, and Crooked Tree Arts Center. I continue to expand my art education toolbelt, most recently by pursuing certification in Art Therapy and Therapeutic Art Life Coaching. My passion is sharing art with the world!
How will your IDEA impact our community?:
My classes offer a judgment-free space for self expression and personal development through art to a range of people in the community. I intend to help strengthen the community by bringing joy and creativity as a shared experience.
What stage is your idea in RIGHT NOW? Phase One for my business plan is to test new classes and ideas in my studio space weekly with small groups of children and adults in a setting where I can provide individualized attention and instruction. My focus will be on organizing and planning class selections, advertising my services, and getting a new sign up app in place for easy class registration and social sharing.
How can we (the audience) get involved or support?: The audience can help me by sharing my idea: tell a friend or a family member! You can also gift a class to someone you know – someone who you think could be positively impacted by taking an art class.
What will be PHASE ONE of your business plan, getting it off the ground?:
Phase One for my studio is getting more organized in terms of class planning, purchasing supplies, advertising class offerings, and being able to offer introductory classes to grow and test new ideas and schedules. To plan a balance as a parent myself so that I can give this the amount of development it needs apart form my time I need to dedicate to my children and my studio paintings as a fine artist.
Willow Bay Myles-Nuffer
[email protected] MissionBlues.org
What is your GOOD IDEA?:
My big idea is to bring greater opportunities for scuba diving and snorkeling here to Northern Michigan and the Great Lakes. This idea incorporates underwater art installations that are environmentally conscious along with programs to boost dive education to our younger generations. Bringing more awareness, love, and protection to our biggest asset, the Great Lakes. The art pieces will offer fish aggregation opportunities along with conservation efforts that can tell the stories of our waters and the people in the region. Think of Jason deCaires Taylor’s work being placed in a shore accessible place right here for us all to enjoyl. This will boost ecotourism and opens the doors for people to come to the area and become cold water, and even ice divers while viewing one of a kind underwater museums.
How would your idea make you COME ALIVE?
I am quite new to diving, learning just last year. I fell in love. I also love Northern Michigan, was raised in a small town north of Petoskey and have lived in Traverse City since 2000. Being able to dive in the surrounding areas and see something more than sand, brown fish, and maybe a shipwreck, sunken car and/or refrigerator would be beyond gratifying. My strength in this idea is that I am committed and have had a lot of positive feedback already from local businesses and underwater organizations.
We all recognize that this present time is opportune to making our shorelines great and keeping them safe thorough spreading the excitement of diving is an excellent resource.
How will your IDEA impact our community?:
Through Art, EcoTourism, and Underwater Education.. My idea would be to have numerous pieces placed through years of defining how these pieces can best help us preserve our area. These pieces will certainly draw underwater enthusiasts to the area and bring money into our community.
What stage is your idea in RIGHT NOW?
Beginning stages. I am in discovery with a few underwater preserves and putting together a board etc.. I have also been in contact with Jason deCaires Taylor’s assistant and started phase one of putting together something for her to present to Taylor. His assistant is from the Great Lakes (Erie side) and has a personal interest in his art being commissioned here.
How can we (the audience) get involved or support?: Helping to come up with locations would be amazing. The bottom of the Great Lakes are 100% owned by the State of Michigan so that means asking for the “go ahead” People with connections in the DNR or EGLE would be a huge asset.
To promote diving for our younger generations, folks that would be willing to discount scuba diving lessons and or contribute to scholarships would also be supporting a great cause!
What will be PHASE ONE of your business plan, getting it off the ground?:
Phase one is getting a team together, this is already in motion. Along with getting the word out and feedback. It is perfect timing with the city looking to redefine Traverse City right now.
Meg Mertaugh-Graber
[email protected] https://www.careovan.com/
What is your GOOD IDEA?:
I am working towards manifesting a clinical mental health private practice called Care-O-Van, housed in a renovated school bus turned mobile therapy office, with a home base location in Traverse City, at the AVEC / Attuned Visceral Expansive Care Farm. My goals are to facilitate research informed, nature-based and animal assisted clinical mental health services on-site at the AVEC Farm, as well as to establish partnerships with schools, farms and community organizations within Northern Michigan to increase access and reception of nature-based, hands-on and experiential therapies throughout our region at a variety of locations.
How would your idea make you COME ALIVE?
I want to do this work to accompany others in their experiences that impact them, and to witness and help hold, as well as make sense of what they wake up with and carry each and every day. I do this work because I’ve been gifted this calling to be present with others in navigating what has been hurtful, harmful, confusing and interpersonally as well as interpersonally destructive. I am sensitive to the nuances and experiences of early childhood trauma, as I have experienced my own and how it can perpetuate to impact one as a parent. I am also deeply familiar with the stigma, silence and minimization that can come with having traumatic experiences here, as a child, adolescent and young adult within this community.
I come alive within this work, by meeting others where they are at, and where they can be, and not pushing for more to achieve an outcome. I come alive within this work by witnessing the unfathomable bravery of others that honor me with expressing any part of their experience through play, art, words and/or relationship… by allowing me to be a part of it… allowing me to be with them, in such vulnerable and scary places, to help make sense of their experiences, and feed relational repair that actively disrupts what has been and continues to be harmful, stuck, exposed, maladaptive and/or limiting. The reciprocity of this work, is what makes me come alive in regards to being able to be a safe, predictable and reparative presence for others in our community, in the ways I needed growing up here with the experiences I had without another asking to understand what is the purpose that lies beyond the behavior.
No one ever wants to acknowledge that horrible things happen within any community let alone our own. I do this work to eliminate the barriers, silence and stigma I experienced, and to professionally facilitate clinical mental health services in partnership with nature and animals as our allies, to achieve relational repair and healing. Without our community having sufficient access to the healing resources it needs, without courageously identifying the need here, and having the honest conversation of affirming the experiences of stress, loss, grief and trauma of others here, we only contribute to the silence and harm immobilizing the learning and healing of others, of which perpetuates intergenerational trauma and blocks each person’s capacity to cultivate and access their own resilience let alone, contribute to cultivating collective community resilience.
I moved away to do the work I needed to do and gain the educational experiences and licenses I needed to be able to move back and give back. I am here now again, to continue a family legacy of healing within our community.
How will your IDEA impact our community?:
Care-O-Van was conceptualized amidst the COVID-19 pandemic as a response to address an elevated need for and to enhance access to mental health services for children and families. As a solution to reduce exposure to and provide reparative support for the experience of adverse childhood experiences, Care-O-Van was created as a mobile and confidential platform to provide a flexible and safe space to service our rural, Northern Michigan communities due to the lack of access to mental health services and the extensive waitlists (upward of 3-6 months), that children, families and individuals are experiencing in our area when in need of help and support.
Traditional therapy typically continues to look like sit down, talk therapy, which requires children and individuals to be able to verbally express themselves and their experiences in ways they might not have the developmental capacity or words for yet within a sterile office environment. Many of our experiences are embodied and visceral, lacking language to make sense of the experience, especially for young children just learning language. Care-O-Van provides services that facilitate access to engaging indoor & outdoor environments, as well as ways of relating to and communication with others that goes beyond verbal language and traditional modes of expression. By incorporating the arts, nature and animals as partners within Care-O-Van’s facilitation of purposeful learning & healing services, children, individuals and families have access to more relational and experiential tools through which to express, make sense of and repair their experiences within a therapeutic environment, in addition to the tools of verbal expression.
Children, families and individuals with whom I work, will walk away with embodied experiences of learning and healing, that are purposefully facilitated by myself in relationship with nature, animals and the arts. Individuals will be walking away with an increased sense of connectedness, relationship, safety, acceptance and being witnessed by others.
What stage is your idea in RIGHT NOW?
Care-O-Van is growing closer and closer to being able to launch and become operational. The renovation of Care-O-Van’s school bus is near completion, and waiting for final touches on the inside to be completed, decals to be applied to the outside, as well as to be serviced by a mechanic and electrician to ensure the engine is healthy and reliable, and that power sources are secured and safe for Care-O-Van to be self sufficient and sustainable.
I am starting to have conversations with local schools and programs that have expressed interest in learning more about Care-O-Van’s services to become a referral source and/or possible partner.
The AVEC Farm has built a home location for Care-O-Van, with a small barn and 3 enclosed pasture areas in which to partner with the 4 Llamas we welcomed home since this past late summer/early autumn.
How can we (the audience) get involved or support?:
The audience can become involved and help support in a few ways:
– Raising awareness of Care-O-Van’s services and spreading the word!
– Pay it forward by making a contribution towards building the resilience of our community by sponsoring service access! Pay it forward donations, advocate for and uphold the possibility for me to offer sessions at a reduced cost for those in need and impacted by economic instability, oppression, discrimination and marginalization.
– Making a donation to support the work and sustainability of Care-O-Van’s animal partners.
Sponsors provide for all the needs of their Llama and/or Chicken, including: feed and supplements, health care (veterinary services, vaccinations, worming, toenail trimming), summer shearing, and regular upkeep of their shelter, coop, chicken run and pasture maintenance. In addition, Sponsors also provide for equipment needs and training, ensuring each animal partner receives individualized and specialized care.
The Llamas and Chickens partnering with Care-O-Van, provide an essential service to our communities. By donating, they will be contributing to the health and wellbeing of Care-O-Van’s Llama and Chicken partners so they can keep sharing their presence as well as learning and healing gifts with children, individuals and families in need within our communities.
They deserve the best love, care and attention we can give them in the reciprocity of their partnership.
Descriptions of each individual Llama and Chicken, Care-O-Van partners with at the AVEC Farm, can be viewed on Care-O-Van’s website, here: https://www.careovan.com/animals-1
Sponsorship Levels:
Sanctuary Sponsor – $2000
Security Sponsor – $1000
Stability Sponsor – $500
Supporter Sponsor – $100
Sanctuary Sponsors Receive:
Trading Card of their Llama and/or Chicken
Bi-annual update letter from their Llama and/or Chicken
Private visit by appointment with their Llama and/or Chicken twice a year
School/Farm/Community Organization Sponsors: Staff resiliency support event
What will be PHASE ONE of your business plan, getting it off the ground?:
The initial stages of ‘Phase One’ in regards to getting my business plan off the ground, entailed investing in the bus, establishing. the AVEC Farm, and contracting for branding and website design. Now, I am nearing the final lap of ‘Phase One’ in working towards completing the bus renovations, and addressing mechanical and electrical functions needed to move forward.
I believe… I am now simultaneously moving towards and entering Phase Two – reaching out to schools, media and funding sources, and starting community conversations with hopes to establish partnerships and service contracts.
Erika Rene Pineiro
[email protected] www.wildthings.farm
What is your GOOD IDEA?:
It is my dream to start a sustainable outdoor wedding venue in the Sleeping Bear Dunes area that gives access to the beauty of Northern Michigan to couples who would not generally be interested in the higher price point of the Traverse City area venues. The venue will be located on an existing (but new) farm named Wild Things Farm. The main attraction of the venue is “The Enchanted Forrest” a cleared section of woods that is large enough to fit tables, canopy and a dance floor, and will be adorned with lights and decorations to enhance the whimsy of the woods.
The venue will offer accommodations in the form of glamping tents, camp sites and solar showers.
The mission of the venue / campground will be promoting organic farming, and events with a minimal carbon footprint. Waste will be discouraged at these events since one (non compostable) containers will not be permitted at events, and where waste is unavoidable, the venue will assist in the recycling and composting as much as possible.
How would your idea make you COME ALIVE? (list your values, personal strengths and passions) :
I have been working in the film and video industry in Michigan for the past 12 years. I work behind the camera in the art department, and have designed hundreds of commercials and independent film productions. 2021 was a great year for me overall work wise, but mentally I have been struggling with burnout from the lack of meaning behind the majority of my work. Instead of selling product, I would much rather bring value to peoples lives on important days of their life. Thinking of spending time at Wild Things Farm is what gets me through a stressful work week, and thinking about sharing that joy with other people sparked the inspiration to start this venue.
How will your IDEA impact our community?:
Wedding venues in the Northern Michigan area book up well over a year in advanced. Since the dawn of the pandemic outdoor weddings have become more of a need than a trend (which it was already trending upward before 2020). Opening up a new venue will allow couples that would have had to wait over a year to find a venue a new option with complete availability this up coming summer.
The average couple spends around $20k on their wedding, these costs go to many vendors, especially the ones directly surrounding the venue. Opening a venue in Benzie county would bring money in to local hair salons, restaurants, catering companies, printers,, dry cleaners etc. The effects will be felt throughout the local economy with no negative impact to the community.
What stage is your idea in RIGHT NOW? (just an idea at this point or in the beginning stages):
Right now I am awaiting approval for a bank loan to purchase the wedding venue equipment. I am trying to find out to self fund the needs for the campground since the bank had no interest in that portion of my adventure. I have been researching wedding statistics and venues for well over a year in preparation for writing my business plan. Even with no loan secured yet I am pushing my company to be ready for the Elite Wedding Expo in Traverse City this April. I am currently still revising my website, but I am making it public to share a link for this pitch to Fulfillament.
How can we (the audience) get involved or support?:
Wild Things Farm has an instagram account @wildthings.farm that is being used to spread our love for the land and get the word out once the venue is up and running. I am in the process of forming vendor recommendation lists and would love to hear from people in the community since I am still new to the area and not living there full time yet.
I am also looking to form connections with people directly involved in Northern Michigan travel attractions to help create weekend trip plans to spark interest in the camp ground. Any ideas, recommendations, or friendly advise is appreciated! Email me at [email protected]
What will be PHASE ONE of your business plan, getting it off the ground?:
Regardless of my approval for the pending bank loan, I am promoting Wild Things Weddings & Events at the Traverse City Elite Wedding Expo. If I am not granted the loan, I will promote the venue as a glampground destination for Bachelor/Bachelorette parties for a down to earth camping weekend including wine tours and Northern Michigan adventures.
