Passport to the Arts Your Town is ARTown made such an impact during its inaugural year in 2009 that it was awarded a $20,000 grant from the Michigan Municipal League's Center for the 21st Century Communities. The grant, with the full backing of Alpena Mayor Carol Shafto, was given to the City of Alpena, which in turn chose to direct the funds to the Passport program to continue and expand it.
Continuation and expansion are exactly what's currently take place.
A US-23 Art Trail Road Map has been created to help market the arts in the region on a broad scale. Additionally, a Passport web site has been developed and enhanced to serve as a central arts hub.
"We're putting us on the map as a center for the arts," said Passport to the Arts organizer Tim Kuehnlein of the Art Trail Road Map. "This is something we've talked about for a long time and has been made possible through the Michigan Municipal League grant."
The colorful map, which is in the process of being printed, highlights 44 different arts organizations stretching north from Standish to Mackinaw City as well as points to the west such as Lincoln and Atlanta. It will be distributed throughout the state at Michigan welcome centers and chambers of commerce in hopes of making the rest of the state aware of what is available along the US-23 corridor and beyond.
"It's beautiful and stylized," said fellow Passport organizer Mary Ellen Jones. "It's got all the information for the techies. It's got the necessary codes so that you can go right to the web sites on a smart phone."
The development of a web site also was extremely important, according to Karen Bennett, who over the last two years has worked on the Passport program alongside Kuehnlein and Jones.
"As usual, when you do any project, you see ways to expand," Bennett said. "We decided that we really needed to have a web site, that it was really critical to being able to sustain an online version of the Passport."
Nancy Mousseau of the Alpena County Library staff first developed the Passport web site as www.artownmichigan.org. The site has been up and running since last spring, but is in the process of being updated and enhanced. Bennett said the library's gracious donation of time and effort to develop the site allowed the Passport group to free up some of the grant funds for other related uses.
It is hoped the web site will enable arts and culture-related organizations and businesses to streamline their activities for the public and serve as a central hub connecting all artists in the region.
"Ultimately we want all our partners to use the site to advertise their events, promotions, events and venues," Bennett said.
The site is expected to be a boon for local residents and visitors alike interested in finding out what is happening artswise in the region.