Copper Shores Podcast

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month and for the fourth straight year Dial Help is bringing it to the attention of Keweenaw residents with their #CopperCountrySAAM campaign. This year Portage Health Foundation is jumping in as a sponsor of their premier event – the Puppy Parade! That event is slated for Wednesday, April 27. It’s a free event with the early people to register receiving a t-shirt...

The PHF Podcast is doing something a little different this time as host Michael H. Babcock was the reporter on the street at the annual Keweenaw Seed Swap. This year’s event was at the Portage Lake District Library as part of the Portage Lake Seed Library. In addition to providing amazing opportunities to swap local seeds, there were a series of lightning talks focused on gardening, local food sys...

Taking 20 minutes out of your day will help researchers better understand the Western U.P. Food System. That’s the idea behind the recently announced Regional Food Systems Assessment that Portage Health Foundation (PHF) is funding in partnership with Michigan Technological University, Western U.P. Food Systems Council and Western Upper Peninsula Planning & Development Region. That’s the discus...

Hillary Sundblad has turned into a real MVP of sorts when it comes to Portage Health Foundation. She’s a process champion at Ontonagon Area Schools with Capturing Kids’ Hearts, she’s on the committee that makes Superior Educators a reality, this winter she took her students out to the PHF-funded Adventure Mountain for some winter fun and last summer she worked on the school garden to introduce kid...

Portage Health Foundation Executive Director Kevin Store is back on the PHF Podcast to talk about some huge things happening at the Foundation with the postings of four new positions. The positions are all posted at phfgive.org/careers and applications are currently being accepted for the openings.  In the podcast Store outlines the latest happenings at the foundation that led to these p...

In this edition of the Portage Health Foundation Podcast, we visit with Superior Search and Rescue (SSAR) President Darian Reed. In the podcast we talk in detail about everything happening with the non-profit organization that serves Houghton, Keweenaw and Ontonagon counties. Below is an overview of what was discussed. Get a background on Darian Reed to learn what led him to join and now lead SSAR...

This special edition of the PHF Podcast features Stephanie Graef of the U.P. Human Trafficking Task Force on Mix 93 WKMJ with morning DJ Dirk Hembroff. They preview the upcoming film screening of Ring of Silence. The film is being screened on Tuesday, February 8 at Hancock Central High School. Festivities will begin at 5:30 p.m. that day. Learn more about the film, event and human trafficking by v...

When Film Director Nicole Bowers Wallace was first presented with the idea of making a film about human trafficking, she had questions. It’s a touchy subject she didn’t know a lot about, but the more she dove in, the more she knew she was appalled. She interviewed investigators from the FBI, human trafficking activists and victims of human trafficking to get a full picture of them problem. Once sh...

On this edition of the Portage Health Foundation Podcast we welcomed Curt Webb from the Keweenaw Co-op. Webb has been with the Co-op for more than two decades and has been working with their board to create a vision for a better future. “We’re hoping we celebrate our 50th anniversary in a new location,” Webb said. They’ve been in their current location since 1987, but it has some major limitations...

Giving Tuesday 2021 is November 30, 2021 and the Portage Health Foundation is once again supporting our non-profit community with a $200,000 match that will go to 22 non-profit organizations! This week we're releasing a series of PHF Podcast episodes highlighting these partners! In this episode we hear from Mary Niemela from Barbara Kettle Gundlach Shelter Home, Joe Panijan from Calumet Township F...

Giving Tuesday 2021 is November 30, 2021 and the Portage Health Foundation is once again supporting our non-profit community with a $200,000 match that will go to 22 non-profit organizations! This week we're releasing a series of PHF Podcast episodes highlighting these partners! In this episode we hear from Steve Cadeau from Habitat for Humanity, Pat Boberg from Mercy EMS, John Diebel from Keweena...

Giving Tuesday 2021 is November 30, 2021 and the Portage Health Foundation is once again supporting our non-profit community with a $200,000 match that will go to 22 non-profit organizations! This week we're releasing a series of PHF Podcast episodes highlighting these partners! In this episode we hear from John and Charmaine Parsons with Dan Schmitt Gift of Music, Darian Reed of Superior Search a...

In the latest episode of the PHF Podcast we talk with Clark Harder, Administrator of the Michigan Transportation Connection which received $800,000 in grant funding from Superior Helath Foundation for non-emergency medical transportation in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The grant included $50,000 in funding from Portage Health Foundation and was to be used over a two-year period of time that in...

In this edition of the PHF Podcast we talk with Mary Niemela - Executive Director at Barbara Kettle Gundlach Shelter Home. Niemela provides insight into what people should do if someone comes forward and says they are having issues in a relationship. For many people - even professionals - they don’t understand what they can do. The basics for what someone should do is to simply listen. To understa...

In this edition of the PHF Podcast we talk with Stephanie Graef of the U.P. Human Trafficking Task Force about upcoming events in the Copper Country. Details on the events are below.  This month residents of the Copper Country will have a chance to learn the facts and myths about human trafficking, learn how and why it’s happening here, and how they can identify and prevent trafficking during...

The 2021-22 academic year is fast approaching and with that comes the fourth year in a row Portage Health Foundation (PHF) is bringing Capturing Kids’ Hearts to the public schools of Michigan’s Copper Country. To help everyone understand what the benefit of that is, we invite you to listen to the latest episode of the PHF Podcast with the one and only Vern Hazard. Vern is the Senior Vice President...

This weekend the Upper Peninsula's food scene will be highlighted during an episode of  Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted  on National Geographic TV. The episode will feature a bunch of scenes in Michigan's Keweenaw Peninsula, and as you'll find out in this episode of the PHF Podcast, that's because Chef James Rigato made it so. "I was adamant that the Keweenaw be a focal point of that episode,"...

In July 2021 Portage Health Foundation (PHF) welcomed Treasure McKenzie to Michigan's Copper Country to introduce community members to Bridges Out of Poverty. McKenzie leads the Bridges program in Muskogee, Oklahoma, and through 10 years they've seen more than 300 families utilize the program. Of those, 73% have found their way out of social services. Now PHF is looking at how this program can be...

When it became clear COVID-19 was a serious threat, there were many emotions for people around the world. For students led by Steve Elmer, PhD, including Doctoral Student Isaac Wedig, it meant trying to do their part by starting UP and Moving. “We’re the exercise people,” Wedig said of those early moments. “We knew physical activity is really important for health, so we thought we need to promote...

Detective Sergeant Jason Wickstrom from the Michigan State Police stopped in to discuss the Upper Peninsula Substance Enforcement Team for the Western Upper Peninsula. The group has been around for more than four years, and among other things they’ve sent 26 people to federal prison for delivery or conspiracy to deliver meth. This Episode’s Guests Jason Wickstrom, Detective Sergeant at Michigan St...

The Portage Health Foundation Podcast is about to get to the roots of an incredible event series taking place this month with the title “Seedy May.” These four events are all free and open to the public starting May 12 and finishing up with a pair of events Memorial Day weekend. This Episode’s Guests - Rachael Pressley, Assistant Regional Planner for the Western U.P. Planning & Development Reg...

Iola Brubaker of the Keweenaw Family Resource Center joined the PHF Podcast to discuss National Child Abuse Prevention Month. National Child Abuse Prevention Month recognizes the importance of families and communities working together to strengthen families to prevent child abuse and neglect. Through this collaboration, prevention services and supports help protect children and produce thriving fa...

In this episode we talk with Cynthia Drake, the Grief Educator at Omega House. She is the host of a monthly community grief support group. The Third Thursday Community Grief Support meets every month for an hour from 5 to 6 p.m. “We noticed we could use a lot more grief support in our community,” Drake said early on in the podcast. “(The group) normalizes something we all know is normal, but we’re...

In the latest PHF Podcast, Karyn Juntunen from the Copper Country Intermediate School District joins host Michael H. Babcock and Portage Health Foundation’s (PHF) Director of Community Health Michelle Seguin, M.D. to discuss school gardens, community gardens, seed saving, gardening in general and an upcoming virtual presentation that Juntunen will be leading. The podcast starts with updates to the...

The Main Street Calumet Farmers Market had a banner year in 2020. Despite the challenges brought on by a global pandemic, they saw more vendors, more sales, more customers and even extended the market well into the fall for the first time in the market’s history. For Portage Health Foundation (PHF), all of that was great to hear. But what put this good news over the top for us was the market succe...