Alluring Lake Michigan sunsets, cities bursting with outdoor sculpture, intriguing architecture, countless design-centric industries, dozens of film schools, globally renowned art and design schools, award-winning symphony orchestras, live theater, ballet, entertainment districts teeming with nightlife and music, and ArtPrize, the world's most lucrative art prize -- West Michigan sustains a vibrant and avid following for the arts.  

 

Summer days come alive with festivals that celebrate dozens of ethnic cultures, music, dance, flowers and arts and crafts. Festivals draw people downtown or out to the parks for music, to try new foods, and meet their neighbors. These summer fests offer a chance to help local charities and Kalamazoo's Boiling Pot Festival is even dedicated to ideas.

 

Many of these celebrations, such as Grand Haven's Coast Guard Festival, Holland's Tulip Festival and the Waterfront Film Festival have attracted crowds of enthusiastic supporters for decades. Art museums, artists' studios and overflowing galleries offer works by world-famous artists such as Paul Collins and Mathias Alten to unknown budding artists who create for the sheer joy of it.

 

Add to this eclectic mix hundreds of secular and faith based elementary and high schools, dozens of public and private universities, community colleges, Montessori schools, trade and technology education centers and West Michigan's zest for living and learning and the result is a winning combination of cultures, age groups and belief systems that make up the kind of culturally diverse opportunities you'll find in only one place: here. A place where people think big enough to start a revolution in education and are generous enough to fund that idea in unprecedented ways. Where economic development, the arts and education are inextricably linked.