July 9th AM

I woke up in Grand Rapids at the home of Denny and Wendy Roy. I gathered up my things, made sure all of my audio and photos had been saved on a hard drive and went outside to strap everything down to my bike. The day looked much sunnier than yesterday. I started up the bike and headed over to the Grand Rapids Community foundation where Wendy worked. The foundation is inside the Grand Rapids mall and across from the large paper mill that employs a lot of folks here. I set up my audio to capture the sounds of the office.

Wendy helps to handle money from families and individuals that want to make a difference in the Grand Rapids community. I listened as she open stock statements to look at the gains or losses of the money the foundation was going to have to give away. Wendy called donors to let them know about specifics needs for their money and helped to manage the projects the foundation funds. Watching this work reminded me of the stories Wendy and Denny had shared with me the night before. I was looking at the results of people interested in supporting a community, the organizers connecting need with resources and remembering that the woman running this effort definately had understood need in her own life.

I left the foundation and headed over to the radio station in Grand Rapids, KAXE, for a quick interview with the morning host Scott Hall. Scott and I chatted about the tour and the stories I had been hearing from folks across the North Woods. I reflected on the impact the stories were having on me and I remembered Jessi’s story about facing fear and finding accountability with herself.

Link to KAXE www.kaxe.org

We wrapped up the interview and I headed on to St. Cloud.