TRAVERSE CITY — A single canned good is all it costs to join Logan’s Landing on Saturday to celebrate its new businesses with food, games and festivities.
Traverse City West Senior High School students planned the strip mall’s first community event, “School’s in, Hunger’s Out,” which will feature everything from a mini farmers market to teachers in dunk tanks.
The daylong celebration has a dual purpose: Welcome and promote new restaurants and shops to the renovated strip mall, and stock up the Traverse City Area Public Schools’ food pantries.
One of those new businesses was the coffee shop Kim Kramer opened with her husband.
The West special education teacher, who opened Kramer’s Bread and Butter at Logan’s Landing in late May, planned the event with members of the high school’s senior class council.
“We were trying to come up with something to get the word out that we have a new location but make it for a good cause,” Kramer said.
The class council decided on TCAPS Food Pantries, launched in 2008 to serve any Traverse City high school students in need of food. Each high school now has its own food pantry, filled by donations and fundraisers, which filter from high school students all the way down to elementary school students who need it.
“It really meant a lot to my students,” Kramer said. “They’ve been helping out to make sure the food pantry would be able to stay and last long after their graduation for years to come.”
She and the senior class council decided on a day of games, music, shopping and food at Logan’s Landing, where the cost to enter would be one non-perishable food item. The goal is to replenish stock in each TCAPS food pantry for the start of school in fall, which would take roughly enough food items to fill a tow trailer, Kramer said.
“Over the summer, our food pantry depletes because we have to get rid of things that will expire and find other storage for perishables,” Kramer said.
The food pantry donations buy guests entry into the event at Logan’s Landing, where they can listen to live music while browsing work from local artists, books from Bookbrokers and clothing from stores like Thimbleberry Retail and LulaRoe.
Kramer said her coffee shop will be serving up their “Tropical Staycation” smoothies made from fresh pineapples, mangos and strawberries. Guests can sip them alongside pulled pork sliders catered by Now You’re Cooking, a locally owned gourmet food and cookware shop that recently opened in Logan’s Landing.
Traverse City East Middle School teacher Jodi Murphy and her husband, Terry, will also set up a mini farmers market at the event, filled with fresh produce from their farm.
The event is topped off with a series of games, including a dunk tank, where students can pay for a shot at dunking TCAPS teachers and Superintendent Paul Soma. All proceeds from that, along with a portion of the day’s sales at Kramer’s Bread and Butter, will go toward keeping food pantries stocked throughout the year.
“That was really important to the kids,” Kramer said. They want to make sure that legacy went on without bringing any additional attention to those who may need to use it.”
“School’s In — Hunger’s Out” will be at Logan’s Landing on Aug. 5 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
