Traverse City, MI (September 2026) - A good business idea often starts close to home, with someone noticing what their community needs.
In o
Detroit, MI (September 2026) — For Detroit PBS, being a good neighbor can mean showing up in some unexpected places.
A gr
Traverse City, MI (September 2026)—On a summer afternoon at Marshville Dam County Park, nearly 100 people gathered at the edge of Stony Creek. There was a ribbon to cut, a platform to dedicate and a creek flowing freely for the first time in 160 years. For the rural communities that have long relied on this waterway, it was more than a restoration project. It was a statement: someone wanted to invest in this place.
This
Discretionary Grant - North Carolina (May 2026) — On a wooded trail in North Carolina, a fifth-grader crouches beside a stream, dip net in hand. He pulls it up, eyes wide. Writhing in the mesh are creatures he's never seen before: crayfish, salamanders, tiny invertebrates that tell the story of the water's health. "We don't have these where I go," he says, breathless with discovery. He'd always considered himself an outdoor kid. He plays in the backyard. He walks to the bus stop. But this… this is something entirely different. For students across North Carolina, experiences like this are exactly what Muddy Sneakers was built to provide. Founded in Brevard in 2007, Muddy Sneakers partners with public schools to bring science curriculum to life outside the classroom. Instead of reading about ecosystems in a textbook or watching experiments on a screen, students step into the lesson itself: hanging bear bags from trees, rolling logs to discover what lives underneath, hiking trails and eating lunch in the open air.
Discretionary Grant - Kannapalis, NC (May 2026) — There is a moment, somewhere between making a protein bar by hand and realizing you have no idea how to get it on a shelf at Whole Foods, when the dream of a food product meets the reality of making one. For most first-time entrepreneurs, that gap is enormous, and largely invisible until you're standing in it.
The
Detroit, MI (May 2026) —Enrichment can mean almost anything in youth development: a club, a field trip, an after-school activity. At Downtown Boxing Gym, it means something specific. It means a youth who visited Thunder Bay at age ten to look at shipwrecks through a glass-bottom boat returns at age thirteen operating an underwater robot and back again at age sixteen leading a younger student's expedition. It means the experience you had last year becomes the foundation for the one you're about to have. It means nothing is a one-off.
Detroit, MI (April 2026)-When a father walked through the doors of the Detroit Institute of Arts with his four-year-old daughter, he braced himself. It was her second visit (she had come once before with her mom) but it was his first, and he didn't know what to expect. He was a big man, the kind you might picture on a football field, not standing beneath a three-story atrium, looking up at marble walls and museum balconies, unsure of what he was supposed to do, or whether he belonged there at all. Then something shifted. Above him, security guards leaned over the railing, waving and calling down to the children streaming in below.
The
Detroit, MI (March 2026) - When Ken Nixon was released from prison after more than 15 years of wrongful incarceration, he didn't waste time looking back. He looked at his city, saw a gap, and decided to fill it.
Retu
Dexter, MI (December 2025) - Winding quietly through Washtenaw County, the Border to Border Trail traces the Huron River, threading together neighborhoods, parks and towns from Ypsilanti to the edge of Jackson County. A 45-mile continuous pathway – nearly complete – it’s a place where the region’s communities meet: on foot, by bike and in motion.
Now,
Jackson, MI (December 2025)-When a child picks up a violin for the first time, something unexpected happens. The restlessness fades. Concentration takes over. Fingers learn precision, ears learn patience and hearts learn harmony.
For