Share Kalamazoo is a Big "Hit"

Wow! ShareKalamazoo.com had almost 19,000 hits in January, and sure, we know a lot of that is due to the initial curiosity, but the hits keep coming.

Our audience, of course, is the greater Kalamazoo area, along with our friends and family around the country, but thanks to some sharing of key individuals in our audience, we have had visitors from 16 countries. We were pleased to hear from those of you who shared news of the site with your friends around the world.

Consider sharing an e-card to friends and family members to tell them about what's going on in the Greater Kalamazoo area.

Sen. Tom George on health care

Our community's "safety net"

What's shaking downtown

More places to see and be seen

Want to be a leader?

Share Kalamazoo is Looking For Writers!

Wow! Thanks for the amazing response to the launch on January 12, 2008, of ShareKalamazoo.com. We have received a ton of emails, and we appreciate the fact that many of you have given us your ideas how we can evolve.

We're accepting tips, story ideas and photographs, and yes, we do pay for articles and photographs if you have a "stringer" relationship with us. Want to write a story, sell a photograph or write a column for ShareKalamazoo?

Here's what we're looking for: Stories of 200 words or less and photographs that highlight the people and places in our communtiy that speak to comunity values, unique offerings and our quality of life. We're looking for unique, relevant and positive, and the writing should be light, bright and tight. Sparkling even.

Interested? Click here.

We also accept story leads, announcements and news releases, but we're not broad-based media.

In the meantime, we'll be updating ShareKalamazoo at least two times every week. We've got polls and we're developing a fun contest. Stay tuned. Bookmark us..

Welcome to Share Kalamazoo!

ShareKalamazoo.com, like the community it serves, is a work in progress. This Web site is being developed to stimulate and support community improvement efforts that ultimately will attract, and retain, young people to work and live in the greater Kalamazoo area.
The site will highlight important issues of the day, emphasizing the positive people, places, programs and projects that help improve the quality of life in Kalamazoo County.

Our sister site, GreaterKalamazoo.com, provides a more comprehensive look at resources in and around our wonderful community.

A Word from the Publisher

Bobbie and I came to Kalamazoo 38 years ago and quickly tired of hearing "why would you want to move here from Ann Arbor and Boulder, Colorado?" We came to love the people who make Kalamazoo so great, and we were fortunate to learn from the likes of Dan Ryan, Glen Smith, Sister Eugene, C.H. Mullen, Marilyn Schlack, Bill Parfet and Dr. Azzam Kanaan, to name just a few. We became deeply involved in the issues that were important to us: education, health and fitness and community development.
To put our passion to work, Bobbie and I founded Lam & Associates 20 years ago with a stated mission "to help improve the quality of life in Kalamazoo County." We believe that our community, as good as it is, needs to aim even higher in our work to attract and retain young people in our fragile economy. We must advance our imporant educational and economic development efforts to create that bright future for generations to come. ShareKalamazoo is our attempt to help.

Blaine Lam, Publisher