Woodlands Behavioral Healthcare Network (BHN) in Cassopolis will be hosting a Recovery Celebration and Suicide Prevention Awareness family day on Saturday, September 9. The event will recognize and honor those who have overcome personal challenges by celebrating with family-friendly activities such as face painting, food trucks, raffle prizes, and a petting zoo.

Much like a bar is an alcohol-consumption lounge where alcoholic drinks are consumed in a public space, marijuana consumption lounges are now popping up across the country with two establishments now open in Michigan. These lounges are designed to be a licensed and safe space for a group of people to consume marijuana, but aren’t without complications and challenges for the communities in which these establishments exist. We take a closer look as Three Rivers considers amending its marijuana ordinance to include such an establishment.

Though the groups have different primary focuses, they’re both fighting pollution that harms their communities. Mother Earth Foundation created a grassroots waste-management solution so effective it influenced the local government. That experience positioned it to offer guidance to Breathe Free Detroit, which is advocating for the community it represents to have more agency over how their waste is managed, too.

The climbing cost to rent a home in Michigan, advocates say, is destabilizing communities and leaving everyone from seniors to families with children and students living with roommates struggling to make ends meet. Michigan legislators are expected to introduce a “renters’ bills of rights” package in the fall to address this ongoing issue.

The 12th annual Walk a Mile in Their Shoes event hosted by Domestic and Sexual Abuse Services (DASAS) will take place this Saturday, August 19, at 11 a.m. in Lafayette Park (400 N. Main St.) in Three Rivers. The event strives to raise awareness and funds for survivors of abuse in Southwest Michigan and will feature a one-mile walk, food trucks, and a DJ. 

Michigan-based organization Disruptive Disciples Blacksmithing has traveled the state — including multiple stops in Three Rivers — to conduct demonstrations of how to transform disabled gun barrels into fully functional gardening tools. Blacksmith and Pastor Corey Simon, who also happens to be a gun owner and hunter, leads these demonstrations not to support efforts to take people’s guns or rights away, but rather to offer a space to imagine a world with less violence, and to mourn with those who have lost loved ones to gun violence.