Listening to Michigan

Facilitator Jeremy Helton listens to Michigan on opening day in Grand Rapids

With the first days of fall, the East MobileBooth headed west from Akron, Ohio to Grand Rapids, Michigan-the last stop on an unofficial “Great Lakes Tour” that also featured Erie, Pennsylvania and Rochester, New York.

The MobileBooth is settled on the banks of the Grand River just outside The Public Museum. Among other artifacts, the museum houses a 1920′s Driggs Skyla biplane. Grand Rapids native John Shipman (below) came to StoryCorps to describe his first taste of flight in one of those planes as a ten-year-old farm kid growing up during the Depression. Now, John likes to visit the museum just to see the plane and get lost in the memories it calls up.

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Grand Rapids: Day to Night

With such beautiful architecture in downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan, we had to showcase these photos in their own slideshow. Enjoy!

_{Day photos by Daniel Littlewood. Night photos by Naomi Greene.}

Giving in Grand Rapids

Philanthropy? What does it mean? Well, if you are a native of Grand Rapids, Michigan, philanthropy is what you do when you care. StoryCorps’ longest Door-to-Door partner, Council of Michigan Foundations, invited us back to record the stories of philanthropists in the Grand Rapids area.

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