Community Calendar

May 1 - May 31 / Join us for a month-long celebration of new vegan dishes all over Kalamazoo!

Back by popular demand for the fourth year in a row, businesses across Kalamazoo will showcase exciting special vegan menu items for an entire month, giving everyone the opportunity to explore creative plant-based dishes crafted by talented local chefs.

How It Works:

1- Visit participating restaurants across Kalamazoo.
2- Try their exclusive vegan offerings.
3- Share your experience: Rate and review the dishes you try, comment, post photos of your favorite meals, and tag us at @KalamazooVeganChefChallenge.

This event is open to everyone, not just vegans! It’s about bringing our community together to celebrate incredible food and support our area's chefs.

Get Involved: Looking for ways to connect? Volunteer with us! We’re seeking passionate individuals to help with outreach, event promotion, and community building throughout the month. It's a great way to meet like-minded people and make a difference! Volunteer using this link: TinyURL.com/VOLVCC.

Join us in making Kalamazoo an even more inclusive, vibrant, and compassionate community. For details on participating businesses, menus, partners, and more, visit our website at veganchefchallenge.org/Kalamazoo.

The Kalamazoo Vegan Chef Challenge is hosted by Vegan Outreach and in collaboration with Vegan Kalamazoo.

Help bring back the floral beauty we look forward to seeing during the summer in the Portage City Centre, including at Portage City Hall and along Library Lane. There are numerous planting days throughout May in which the community is invited to participate.

Start time is 9:00 am, but volunteers are welcome to come for an early shift to help us take flats of flowers to the beds. Each planting day ends around Noon. Volunteer for any amount of time you can give. Signing up in advance is encouraged, but you can also show up on the day of planting. For all of the dates, times, locations, and details on where to park and check in, they can be found on SignUpGenius, https://www.signupgenius.com/go/5080C4BA8AD2DAAF49-62628403-2026#/

Gardening experience is not required. Supplies will be provided if you don’t have your own gloves, trowel, or kneeling pad. Beverages and snacks will also be provided. Planting happens whether it rains or shines or is hot or cold. Dress for the weather.

These spring planting days are the perfect opportunity for bonding, team building, and meeting new friends.

May 1 - May 31 / Join us for a month-long celebration of new vegan dishes all over Kalamazoo!

Back by popular demand for the fourth year in a row, businesses across Kalamazoo will showcase exciting special vegan menu items for an entire month, giving everyone the opportunity to explore creative plant-based dishes crafted by talented local chefs.

How It Works:

1- Visit participating restaurants across Kalamazoo.
2- Try their exclusive vegan offerings.
3- Share your experience: Rate and review the dishes you try, comment, post photos of your favorite meals, and tag us at @KalamazooVeganChefChallenge.

This event is open to everyone, not just vegans! It’s about bringing our community together to celebrate incredible food and support our area's chefs.

Get Involved: Looking for ways to connect? Volunteer with us! We’re seeking passionate individuals to help with outreach, event promotion, and community building throughout the month. It's a great way to meet like-minded people and make a difference! Volunteer using this link: TinyURL.com/VOLVCC.

Join us in making Kalamazoo an even more inclusive, vibrant, and compassionate community. For details on participating businesses, menus, partners, and more, visit our website at veganchefchallenge.org/Kalamazoo.

The Kalamazoo Vegan Chef Challenge is hosted by Vegan Outreach and in collaboration with Vegan Kalamazoo.

Birding the Kleinstuck Preserve
Wednesdays, May 6 & May 13, 8 am
Meet: Maple Street YMCA parking area next to tennis courts, walk to Kleinstuck Preserve

Audience: Teens & Adults

Join KNC research staff John Brenneman as he performs his survey for spring migratory birds. Limited supply of Binoculars will be available to borrow. This program does not have a designated end-time; the birds dictate how long the program lasts, but participants are free to leave when they need to.

Fee: Free program; please register.

Help bring back the floral beauty we look forward to seeing during the summer in the Portage City Centre, including at Portage City Hall and along Library Lane. There are numerous planting days throughout May in which the community is invited to participate.

Start time is 9:00 am, but volunteers are welcome to come for an early shift to help us take flats of flowers to the beds. Each planting day ends around Noon. Volunteer for any amount of time you can give. Signing up in advance is encouraged, but you can also show up on the day of planting. For all of the dates, times, locations, and details on where to park and check in, they can be found on SignUpGenius, https://www.signupgenius.com/go/5080C4BA8AD2DAAF49-62628403-2026#/

Gardening experience is not required. Supplies will be provided if you don’t have your own gloves, trowel, or kneeling pad. Beverages and snacks will also be provided. Planting happens whether it rains or shines or is hot or cold. Dress for the weather.

These spring planting days are the perfect opportunity for bonding, team building, and meeting new friends.

May 1 - May 31 / Join us for a month-long celebration of new vegan dishes all over Kalamazoo!

Back by popular demand for the fourth year in a row, businesses across Kalamazoo will showcase exciting special vegan menu items for an entire month, giving everyone the opportunity to explore creative plant-based dishes crafted by talented local chefs.

How It Works:

1- Visit participating restaurants across Kalamazoo.
2- Try their exclusive vegan offerings.
3- Share your experience: Rate and review the dishes you try, comment, post photos of your favorite meals, and tag us at @KalamazooVeganChefChallenge.

This event is open to everyone, not just vegans! It’s about bringing our community together to celebrate incredible food and support our area's chefs.

Get Involved: Looking for ways to connect? Volunteer with us! We’re seeking passionate individuals to help with outreach, event promotion, and community building throughout the month. It's a great way to meet like-minded people and make a difference! Volunteer using this link: TinyURL.com/VOLVCC.

Join us in making Kalamazoo an even more inclusive, vibrant, and compassionate community. For details on participating businesses, menus, partners, and more, visit our website at veganchefchallenge.org/Kalamazoo.

The Kalamazoo Vegan Chef Challenge is hosted by Vegan Outreach and in collaboration with Vegan Kalamazoo.

Help bring back the floral beauty we look forward to seeing during the summer in the Portage City Centre, including at Portage City Hall and along Library Lane. There are numerous planting days throughout May in which the community is invited to participate.

Start time is 9:00 am, but volunteers are welcome to come for an early shift to help us take flats of flowers to the beds. Each planting day ends around Noon. Volunteer for any amount of time you can give. Signing up in advance is encouraged, but you can also show up on the day of planting. For all of the dates, times, locations, and details on where to park and check in, they can be found on SignUpGenius, https://www.signupgenius.com/go/5080C4BA8AD2DAAF49-62628403-2026#/

Gardening experience is not required. Supplies will be provided if you don’t have your own gloves, trowel, or kneeling pad. Beverages and snacks will also be provided. Planting happens whether it rains or shines or is hot or cold. Dress for the weather.

These spring planting days are the perfect opportunity for bonding, team building, and meeting new friends.

Join us for a special Artful Evening with Elizabeth Semmelhack, Director and Senior Curator of the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto! Semmelhack is the curator of Future Now: Virtual Sneakers to Cutting-Edge Kicks. During this program, she will talk about why shoes matter and about how designers today are revolutionizing what we will put on our feet tomorrow. If you’ve enjoyed Future Now, don’t miss this opportunity to meet the curator behind the exhibition!

Semmelhack’s work focuses on the intersections of fashion, culture, and economics, with a particular interest in the history of footwear. She is widely quoted in the media from the New York Times to Vogue, and since starting at the Bata Shoe Museum in 2000, she has curated over thirty exhibitions and written fourteen books and catalogues and over thirty chapters and articles. Her most recent exhibitions and publications related to sneakers include Art/Wear: Sneakers x Artists (2024), Future Now: Virtual Sneakers to Cutting-Edge Kicks (Rizzoli:2022), Collab: Sneakers x Culture (Rizzoli: 2019), and Out of the Box: The Rise of Sneaker Culture (Rizzoli: 2015).

Future Now: Virtual Sneakers to Cutting-Edge Kicks is co-organized by the American Federation of Arts and the Bata Shoe Museum, and curated by Elizabeth Semmelhack, Director and Senior Curator of the Bata Shoe Museum.

All hybrid events will be livestreamed to our YouTube page and can be found under the “Live” tab. Recordings of select past events are available on YouTube as well.

May 1 - May 31 / Join us for a month-long celebration of new vegan dishes all over Kalamazoo!

Back by popular demand for the fourth year in a row, businesses across Kalamazoo will showcase exciting special vegan menu items for an entire month, giving everyone the opportunity to explore creative plant-based dishes crafted by talented local chefs.

How It Works:

1- Visit participating restaurants across Kalamazoo.
2- Try their exclusive vegan offerings.
3- Share your experience: Rate and review the dishes you try, comment, post photos of your favorite meals, and tag us at @KalamazooVeganChefChallenge.

This event is open to everyone, not just vegans! It’s about bringing our community together to celebrate incredible food and support our area's chefs.

Get Involved: Looking for ways to connect? Volunteer with us! We’re seeking passionate individuals to help with outreach, event promotion, and community building throughout the month. It's a great way to meet like-minded people and make a difference! Volunteer using this link: TinyURL.com/VOLVCC.

Join us in making Kalamazoo an even more inclusive, vibrant, and compassionate community. For details on participating businesses, menus, partners, and more, visit our website at veganchefchallenge.org/Kalamazoo.

The Kalamazoo Vegan Chef Challenge is hosted by Vegan Outreach and in collaboration with Vegan Kalamazoo.

The Kalamazoo Civic Theatre’s production of The Producers: A Mel Brook Musical runs May 1 – 17, in the Civic Auditorium.
It’s non-stop laughs when a down-on-his-luck Broadway producer and his mild-mannered accountant come up with a scheme to produce the most notorious flop in history, thereby hustling their backers out of millions of dollars. Mel Brooks’ laugh-out-loud spectacle The Producers sets the standard for modern, outrageous, in-your-face humor.

Tickets on sale now: https://bit.ly/TheProducersTickets-KCT

Performance Dates:
• Friday, May 1 at 7:30 PM
• Saturday, May 2 at 7:30 PM*^
• Sunday, May 3 at 2:00 PM
• Friday, May 8 at 7:30 PM
• Saturday, May 9 at 7:30 PM
• Sunday, May 10 at 2:00 PM
• Friday, May 15 at 7:30 PM
• Saturday, May 16 at 7:30 PM
• Sunday, May 17 at 2:00 PM
* ASL Interpreted and Audio Description Services Available
^Theme Night: “Tony Night” at the Civic - come dressed in your favorite Tony Award attire.

Book by MEL BROOKS & THOMAS MEEHAN Music and Lyrics by MEL BROOKS
Original direction and choreography by Susan Stroman
By special arrangement with StudioCanal
THE PRODUCERS is presented through special arrangement with Music Theatre International (MTI). All authorized performance materials are also supplied by MTI. www.mtishows.com