Alvarez Salutes America Celebration

After 39 years of practicing law in Lake and Porter counties, Wally Alvarez wanted to give back to the community.

So he talked it over with his brother Mario, and the inaugural Alvarez Salutes America Celebration was born.

The festivities started Friday night with music from High Noon and a carnival atmosphere. Vendors from around the area sold homemade sausage, fudge, kettle corn, Mexican food, ice cream, funnel cakes and Italian ice. Kids bounced around the Porter County Fairgrounds with snow cones and prizes from game booths. Later in the night, the Titus Rodes Band took the stage just before a fireworks display.

To add a charity element, Alvarez sought out help from Nancy Adams, Porter County commissioner. She connected him with Family House and the Porter County Animal Shelter.

Continue reading this story at The Times.

Mom to the World - Judy Engel

Judy Engel never dreamed she would be a mom to so many.

“We always said we were stopping with three kids,” Judy Engel said. “Then, we added 57 more ... from 23 different countries.”

Engel and her husband, Phil, started hosting international students in their home in Portage in 1997 through a short-term exchange program with the Lions Club. In this program, international students would come from and stay with a host family for six weeks at a time to experience American culture from the inside.

Within a few years, Engel was coordinating the exchange program for Northwest Indiana.

Then, Francisco changed their lives. Two days before he left Brazil to study in America, his host family backed out. Judy and Phil agreed to fill in on a temporary emergency basis. He moved out eight years later.  

“A few days after he arrived, we knew God wanted him to live with us,” Judy said.

Continue reading this story at the NWI Times.

Father and Son Craft a Better Relationship

You can see their bowls and paintings every Saturday at the European Market.  But the Husarik family stumbled into art separately.  

Nancy Husarik was first with her photography, paintings, and decorative coasters.  She has been a fixture at the European Market for the past 8 years.

Then, her husband Greg got a hand-me-down lathe from a coworker and started making artistic wooden bowls.  “I realized this is really fun,” Greg said, “but then I was making so much stuff that it started taking over the house.”  So Nancy started selling his bowls along with her own art work.

A few years later, their son Leo took a class in ceramics at Indiana University Northwest.  He liked pottery so much that the house began to fill up again.  So Nancy rounded out the family art booth by making room for Leo’s ceramic bowls and vases.

They may not have planned it, but working together has enriched their father-son relationship.  Nancy affirms the benefit for the family, “It gives them another thing to talk about - the colors, the base of the bowls, the shapes.  We talk about it at the dinner table - what we’re taking, what we need, what’s selling, and what’s not selling.”

With each of them working on a different kind of art, they feel free to critique and to celebrate each other’s work.  Instead of competing on who sells more, they dream together about how to produce better art.  

Continue reading this story at: Lake Michigan Shore.

Hebron High Class Basks in Shared Good Times

Being together since kindergarden has helped Hebron High School graduates bond, said Rick Cheek, the school's band director.

“They’re a tight-knit group," he said. "They’re always hanging out together. We always hate to see the senior class go.”

Class President Aaron Plomann shared the sentiment in his welcoming address to the 124th commencement:

 “I can’t think of any other place I’d rather graduate.”

Allison Lewis, co-salutatorian, expressed the students’ thanks “for everyone who works at our school from the cafeteria workers to the janitors, the faculty and the coaches. We wouldn’t be graduating without you.”

Continue reading this story at The Times.  

Farmboys Workshop Bringing Nature to a Wall or Card Near You

I love local art.  Even better when it is in the family.
Sarah's uncles, Steve and Donald, make up Farmboys Workshop.  Steve takes the photos from around their home Tryon Farm (Michigan City, IN) and adapts them using PhotoShop, and Donald handles production and distribution.
The end result is unique art and dazzling greeting cards.  The images are somewhere between photo, realistic painting, and Van Gogh.
A browse through their offerings will add color to your life, and you will also learn a lot about native Indiana plant life.  From flowers to grasses and turtles to butterflies, they will reacquaint you with nature.  For example, check out this Bee on Spotted Knapweed.  Who knew weeds could be so beautiful?!

Check them out on Etsy.  They make great gifts and cards, and the cards actually make great gifts as well.  We have a collection of three pictures over our coatrack in our entryway, and Sarah bought a bunch of cards to reframe elsewhere.  You can also like them on Facebook to see their latest work.

Valparaiso Never Tasted So Good

Tri Kappa welcomed more than a thousand guests Thursday night into a taste bud extravaganza to raise funds for college scholarships. Forty-one area restaurants put their best quiche and panini forward for Taste of Valparaiso in the Porter County Expo Center.

Taste of Valparaiso also features a silent auction of everything from sports tickets to original art to a ready made “date night basket.” New this year were the central red tables for sponsors, the private dining in the Red Ticket Lounge, and the Wine Pull with a wide range of wines.

Tri Kappa is a philanthropic organization made up entirely of Indiana women. The Valparaiso chapter started in 1906 and exists solely to support the community. Last year they gave away $16,000 in scholarships, in addition to giving sizable donations to the YMCA, the Boys & Girls Clubs, and several other groups.

To continue reading, go to the NWI Times.