Traverse City Record-Eagle

Columns

September 14, 2009

Northern Notes: Knitters appeal for yarn

Residents at Glen Eagle Retirement Community work all year making knitted and crocheted items for Operation Christmas Child, but exhausted their yarn supply and need help to refill their cupboard so they can continue.

The group would welcome any yarn donations so they can keep creating scarves, hats, mittens, finger puppets, purses and more. The items are tucked into shoeboxes, along with other small gifts, and shipped at the holidays to needy children worldwide.

Donations may be dropped off at Glen Eagle, 3950 Sumac Drive. For more information, call 935-4553.

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The Traverse City Orthodox Mission Church would like to thank the community for supporting its "Taste of Greece" dinner in July.

The dinner has been held for eight years. It is the main fundraiser for the Orthodox Mission Church, which serves all of northern Lower Michigan.

"We appreciated the opportunity to reach out to the Traverse City community with this event," Jennifer Borkovich wrote on behalf of the congregation. "We had a wonderful turnout and received great compliments about the food."

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Child and Family Services was one of the agencies that benefited from 200 backpacks filled with school supplies donated by Huntington Bank.

The donation, in partnership with Meijer, is part of a 14,000 backpack and school supply set give-away throughout communities served by Huntington.

"Thousands of school children need help showing up prepared at the start of the school year ..." said Roger Thompson, Huntington Community president. "Huntington is glad to do our part and grateful for the generosity of our partners at Meijer."

"Huntington's donation is going to help a lot of school children start school better prepared," said Gina Aranki, marketing and public relations director for Child and Family Services. "And today, I am truly happy for those children. However, I know there are many additional children whose families need a helping hand sending them off to school with a backpack filled with supplies. I encourage everyone with the resources to give to joint area efforts to support the kids in our community."

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Third Level Crisis Intervention Center would like to send a special thank-you to Maritime Heritage Alliance Director Mark Thompson, Office Manager Kelly Curtis, Capt. Larry Good and his volunteer crew and all the people at MHA for giving Third Level's Youth Program participants the opportunity to sail aboard the schooner Madeline in July.

"The kids truly enjoyed this unique experience on Grand Traverse Bay," a letter from Third Level stated. "The amount of confidence-building and the increased sense of belonging within the community that this experience fostered is impossible to measure and worth its weight in gold. Kids were already asking about next year before we finished the sail! So thank you again to the Maritime Heritage Alliance from all of us at Third Level."

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