1. Issue a Michigan Week declaration, resolution or proclamation.
    
2. Sponsor a contest for best store window display with a Michigan Week theme in your downtown or mall shopping area.
    
3. Videotape living histories at senior centers. Make copies available for families, libraries and historical centers.
    
4. Hold a Michigan Week parade, festival or other special event.
    
5. Hold an old-fashioned community softball or baseball tournament during Michigan Week.
    
6. Coordinate a storytelling festival with tellers from the area sharing tall tales, legends and histories of the county.
    
7. Develop a speaker's bureau, encouraging residents from various ethnic backgrounds with differing cultural heritages to participate.
    
8. Prepare a Year 2009 time capsule! Invite community members to submit artifacts and tie the ceremony in with local celebrations.
    
9. Fund a restoration project of an older building in the community. Send out a call for donated artifacts.
    
10. Encourage local restaurants to develop all-Michigan meals and have a "taste-off" to support a local charity. 
     
11. Encourage your local library to offer a revolving exhibition of local artists' work or host readings for local writers.
     
12. Present a special certificate to all babies born during Michigan Week.
     
13. Dedicate or establish the Michigan Week theme for already existing community news.
     
14. Create a community cookbook, complete with recipes and reminiscences from residents. Sell it as a fund-raiser for the local historical society or library.
     
15. Sponsor a Michigan Week essay or photo contest in which students in your area tell or show which local tradition or custom is most treasured by them and why!
     
16. Put together a self-guided tour for out-of-town visitors (develop a children's tour as well). Include many cultural, historical, architectural and natural resources, as well as events that reflect the spirit of your community.
     
17. Plan a community-wide volunteer/clean-up day. Focus on a park or other site used by many residents.
     
18. Use the Michigan Week logo in publications and on your Web site; create a link to the Michigan Week Web page from your site. 
     
19. Honor your community's oldest citizen, house or family.
     
20. Develop a volunteer recognition program in your community.
     
21. Participate in the annual Mayor's Exchange coordinated by the Michigan Association of Mayors and the Michigan Municipal League.
     
22. Donate artifacts from your community to the Michigan Historical Museum collection. The museum's exhibits detail everyday life in Michigan through the 20th century.
     
23. Hold an open house at a historic site. See Michigan's Historic Sites Online.
     
24. Come up with your own unique way to celebrate Michigan's heritage during Michigan Week, May 16-22, 2009!

Updated 2/6/2009

Department of History, Arts and Libraries
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