Center for Cultural Programs Since 1883
We offer many diverse programs to our members and guests. A listing of our past programs is below. Please come join us in the future.
Drop off donations:
Tuesday, May 27th and Wednesday, May 28th – 10 am to 2 pm.
Sale:
Thursday, May 29th, and Friday, May 30th – 9 am to 4 pm.
Saturday, May 31st – 9 am to noon
Shop for treasures and support South Haven Scott Club’s major fundraiser by donating clean items in good condition and attending the sale to take advantage of some incredible bargains. Proceeds will help support maintenance of the Scott Club, a Michigan Historic site, and the rich variety of programs offered.
By Alexandra Newman, Region IV Area Agency on Aging
Whether you want to get a jump start on your own obituary, or you want to be prepared for writing someone else’s when the time comes, join us for this presentation and discussion on how to tell the story of someone’s life. Learn tips and tricks for capturing those special things about a person and even what you can leave out if you’re short on space. We’ll also touch a little on grief and the healing power of storytelling.
Alexandra Newman is the communications and outreach coordinator at Region IV Area Agency on Aging. A journalist by training, she uses a variety of mediums to tell the story of Area Agency on Aging. A job at The Herald-Palladium newspaper brought Newman to Southwest Michigan in 2017 and she instantly fell in love with the unsalted Lake Michigan coast. After the experience of writing obituaries for her grandparents, she decided to launch a class at the Campus for Creative Aging to help others write these tough, end-of-life stories.
By Timothy Horan
Timothy Horan, a South Haven native, will share his poetry designed to assist humanity in its integral role in the functioning of the sacred web of life and the importance of becoming engaged.
He served on the South Haven City Council as a Council Member and Mayor from 1978-1984. During his administration, the Downtown Development work began. He has worked as a public school teacher and, for decades, as an Executive Director for Indian Housing for 5 Native American Tribes. He has a master’s degree in Interdisciplinary Consciousness Studies from John F Kennedy University, with a concentration in ecology and Native American spirituality.
By Jo Ann Flowers
Identity theft is widespread and varied. While there are many ways for fraudsters to poach your identity, there are also many simple steps you can take to help keep them at bay. This is an opportunity to review your ID protection checklist and to learn steps you can start using today to help protect your identity.
Since 2015, Jo Ann Flowers has been an AARP Michigan volunteer with the driver safety program and a presenter on various topics, including brain health and fraud.
By Sharon Carlson, President, Kalamazoo Ladies’ Library Association
Ladies’ Library Associations existed in more than 100 communities in Michigan between the 1850s and early twentieth century. Many provided the first subscription-based library services, and some helped shepherd public libraries. This program will provide the background that made Michigan so well suited to these institutions and tell the stories of some of the women who helped promote this movement. It will also talk about the evolution and decline of the movement, as well as the tangible legacy these organizations left behind.
Sharon Carlson retired as head of Western Michigan University’s Zhang Legacy Collections Center in 2020. She is an archival and historical consultant and has worked for the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame and the Meijer Corporation. Ms. Carlson has graduate degrees in history and library science with the main focus of her dissertation research having been on ladies’ library associations in Michigan. She is currently the president of the Kalamazoo Ladies’ Library Association and has served as president of the Historical Society of Michigan.
By Angela LaBarca, Community Relations, Corewell Health Hospice and Palliative Care
Understanding hospice and palliative care can be overwhelming for patients and their families. With so many myths about hospice care, this will be an opportunity to learn about the specialized care provided by local hospice care teams to include physical, emotional, psychosocial, and spiritual care for anyone experiencing serious illness. Information on how care is paid for will be provided as well as the benefits of early admission. Angela will also offer information on primary care in the home, grief healing and education, veteran support services and advance care planning.
By Dr. Evan Kutzler, Associate Professor of History, Western Michigan University
In 1948, all all-white jury in Georgia sentenced Rosa Lee Ingram and two teenage children to the electric chair for what became known nationally as a self-defense slaying. The protests that followed saved Rosa Lee, Sammie Lee, and Wallace Ingram’s lives but also propelled a rabid segregationist to seven terms in the U.S. Congress. At once local and national, distant and familiar, the Ingram case captured the imagination of activists around the country for years before receding from popular public memory.
Dr. Kutzler has published book-length projects and is presently completing a book about Rosa Lee Ingram, a widowed mother of twelve whose trial became an international symbol of southern and American injustice in the Cold War era.
“I am a Tennessean by birth, an academic by training, and a public historian by instinct,” so states Dr. Evan Kutzler’s website. He is currently an Associate Professor of History at Western Michigan University who is also committed to the broad interdisciplinary field of professionals working outside the classroom and beyond the traditional mediums of academic scholarship. His public history projects have included national register nominations, websites, and digital tours, as well as newspaper, magazine, and book publications. A sample of projects include a photography book, Ossabaw Island: A Sense of Place with photographer Jill Stucky and an introduction by President Jimmy Carter (Macon: Mercer University Press, 2016), an edited cookbook, From Biscuits to Lane Cake: Emma Rylander Lane’s “Some Good Things to Eat” (Macon: Mercer University Press, 2023), and a National Park Service study on African American history at Andersonville National Historic Site.
