Coverage of activities happening at the neighborhood level as told by the neighbors themselves. Coverage of the characteristics of given neighborhoods. Coverage of ways neighbors are making their community better.
AllyKat Studios, LLC, is a new lash, brow, micro-blading, and tattoo studio that caters to the Queer community. For clients who are currently transitioning genders, a new set of eyelashes, the right brow shape, or even gender-affirming tattoos, AllyKat owners say, can help lessen the dysphoria that oftentimes accompanies a transition.
Synergy Health Center’s UrbanZone is headquartered offers after-school programs and summer workshops for Kalamazoo teens and this summer is offering experiences that will help them have fun and improve their mental health.
The Edison Jazz Fest will bring national and local jazz luminaries to Kalamazoo to perform in the neighborhood Sept. 12-18. The Dormouse Theatre, Jerico, La Luna Recording, and The Creamery's rooftop garden will be the venues.
The Gun Violence Resource and Resilience Rallies in Kalamazoo bring in people to learn about resources in not only prevention of gun violence, but to help those directly and indirectly impacted by it.
"In my experience, and in the experience of lots of artists that I know, a critique night is a fun, relaxed kind of thing where we can come together and show each other our work, and get feedback on that," Ellen Nelson, event organizer, says. The Vine neighborhood has a lot of creativity because it is fostered there, she adds.
Matthew Schmidt bought a former factory in the Edison Neighborhood in October of 2020 and has been working to convert it into a studio for himself, as well as an art gallery and performance space for other artists. Other people's trash is slowing him down. Now the neighborhood wants to hold property owners like Schmidt's neighbor who allow illegal dumping accountable.
Venues are lined up and artists are confirmed for a jazz festival in Kalamazoo's Edison Neighborhood this fall. "We are literally putting it out in the streets and making it accessible to everyone for free," says Edison Executive Director Stephen Dupuie.
“I started to talk about what I really wanted to see happen,” says board member Stephen Dupuie, “and then the board members one by one kept tapping me on the shoulder and saying, ‘I think that you should do it. We really like your ideas.’” He's the new Executive Director of the Edison Neighborhood Association.
There have been many accomplishments in the Edison Neighborhood over the past 21 years that Tammy Taylor has been Exective Director. But she says it has been the small things she and the association have done to help people that have meant the most to her.
Residents can look forward to a cluster of new projects that are in the works for the Edison Neighborhood.
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