• In April 1998, 500 members and friends rocked the house at the Cabbage Shed restaurant in Elberta for our first annual "Bearthday" party, to celebrate the Institute's third year and dance to the rhythm and blues of the Fabulous Horndogs band.
  
  
• The same month, the Institute attracted scores of kids who painted flowers and animals on their cheeks at our booth at the All Species Earth Day parade in Traverse City.
  
  
• In June, former U.S. Interior Secretary Stewart L. Udall visited northwest Michigan and the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, which he cofounded in 1970. Mr. Udall addressed 160 members at a banquet in Traverse City, and told a standing room only crowd who turned out for a reception after he toured the park for the first time, "I feel exhilarated today."
  
  
• We held our banner high in the Fourth of July parade in our neighboring village of Beulah. Staffers Alicia Harrison and Deb Negri-Jackson led a squad of young volunteers who sprayed water at onlookers and tossed candy to them from a little red wagon. Also in July, our Annual Open House here in Benzonia attracted more than 100 guests who savored the locally-produced goodies from our members who own restaurants, bakeries, farms, and food stores.

No doubt, one of the joys of building grassroots movements is gathering with friends to share the human delight that always comes with fostering genuine community.