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The Newaygo County Community Choir presents their “Christmas Concert” on Sunday, December 5 at 3:00 p.m. on the Dogwood Center’s Main Stage.
The “Christmas Concert”, under the direction of Joseph R. Jennings, will feature music for the season, the Cathedral Handbell Choir of Fremont United Methodist Church, and carols with the audience.
3:00 p.m.  Main Stage.  Free will offering.  Reception following the performance.

“The Narcissism Epidemic:  Living in the Age of Entitlement” with Jean M. Twenge
Webcast provided by Calvin College, Fremont Area Community Foundation, and the Dogwood Center.
Jean Twenge is a widely published professor of psychology at San Diego State University, the author of Generation Me, and the co-author of The Narcissism Epidemic. Her research has been featured or quoted in Time, USA Today, New York Times, The Washington Post, and other major media.  She has appeared on Today, Good Morning America, Dateline, and National Public Radio.
Her talks are geared towards a general audience and mixes easily comprehensible scientific research with examples from popular culture and plenty of humor.  In 2010, she founded iGen Consulting to advise companies and organizations on generational differences based on her expertise and research on the topic.
This lecture will be broadcast via webcast at the Dogwood Center from 12:30 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.  Admission is free.

“The Future of Education” with Sajan George
Webcast provided by Calvin College, Fremont Area Community Foundation, and the Dogwood Center.
As a turnaround specialist, Mr. George has uniquely applied has turnaround skills to our nation’s struggling public education system.  Sajan’s particular focus and passion has been to realize the dream that all students, regardless of background, can learn and succeed in American society.  He works alongside the nation’s governors, state superintendents, mayors, chancellors and school superintendents as well as two of the largest education philanthropic investors, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Eli & Edythe Broad Foundation. 
Dissatisfied by the status quo in public education in this country, he has worked at restructuring some of the largest K – 12 and higher education institutions in the country including two of the nation’s most complex urban school systems in New York City and Washington, DC as well as the New Orleans Parish Schools in the aftermath of Hurrican katrina and most recently the State Departments of Education in Indiana, New Mexico and Arkansas.  He is currently leading a team in Detroit to manage the city’s K-12 special education department.
This lecture will be broadcast via webcast at the Dogwood Center from 12:30 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.  Admission is free.

“Harnessing the Power of Perspective:  the Kiva Story” with Jessica Jackley
Webcast provided by Calvin College, Fremont Area Community Foundation, and the Dogwood Center.
Ms. Jackley is the co-founder of Kiva, the world’s first peer-to-peer microloan website.  At Kiva.org users can make microloans directly to specific developing world entrepreneurs – who then use the moeny to start or grow a small business – and lift themselves out of poverty.  Loans start at $25.  Named one of the top ideas of 2006 by The New York Times Magazine, and praised by Oprah, Bill Clinton and countless others, Kiva is one of the fastest-growing social benefit websites in history. 
Since its founding in 2005, it has loaned over $100 million from lenders to entrepreneurs across 182 countries.  For all its success, Kiva remains animated by a simple message – to connect people through lending to alleviate poverty – and by the idea that relationships are a powerful force for positive change.
This lecture will be broadcast via webcast at the Dogwood Center from 12:30 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.  Admission is free.

“The Keys to Perseverance” with Cal Ripken, Jr.
Webcast provided by Calvin College, Fremont Area Community Foundation, and the Dogwood Center.
Retired from baseball in October 2001 after 21 seasons with the Baltimore Orioles, Cal Ripken, Jr. was entered in the record books as on of only seven players in history to achieve 400 home runs and 3,000 hits.  Cherished by fans around the globe as baseball’s “Iron Man”, in 1995 he broke Lou Gehrig’s record for consecutive games played, and voluntarily ended his streak in 1998 after playing 2,632 consecutive games.
His remarkable accomplishment is regarded as one of the single greatest moments in sports history.  Ripken’s name has become synonymous with strength, character, endurance, and integrity.  His philosophy of working hard, playing with passion, and enjoying the game has made a tredendous impact on the sport, and on fans everywhere.
This lecture will be broadcast via webcast at the Dogwood Center from 12:30 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.  Admission is free.

“John Muir and the Religion of Nature” with Donald Worster
Webcast provided by Calvin College, Fremont Area Community Foundation, and the Dogwood Center.
Dr. Worster is the Hall Professor of U.S. History and Environmental Studies at the University of Kansas and is currently the Strachan Donnelley Visiting Environmental Scholar at the Yale Institute of Biosphere Studies and School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.  He is the author of many highly acclaimed books including biographies on John Muir and John Wesley Powell.
He is primarily interested in the emerging field of enviromental history – the changing perception of nature, the rise of conservation and environmentalism, but especially the ways that the natural world has impinged on human society and provided the context for human life over time.
This lecture will be broadcast via webcast at the Dogwood Center from 12:30 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.  Admission is free.

“The Price of Stones:  Building a School for My Village” with Twesigye Jackson Kaguri
Webcast provided by Calvin College, Fremont Area Community Foundation, and the Dogwood Center.
Jackson Kaguri was raised in Uganda, graduated from Makerere University, attended graduate school in the U.S. and was a visiting scholar at Columbia University.  He is the founder and director of the Nyaka and Kutamba AIDS Orphans Schools in Uganda and the author of the recently released “The Price of Stones”, the stirring story behind the founding of his schools.  In the book he weaves together inspiring accounts of building the first school stone by stone against tremendous odds to meet needs of the growing number of children in his town left orphaned by AIDS.  Kaguri shows how one person with a modest idea is capable of achieveing monumental results.
He weas recently featured in the June 14 issue of TIME Magazine in an article intitled “Power of One”.  As the article states, “He had an American job, an American wife and the beginnings of a down payment to buy a house.  Then in April 2001, he took his wife to visit his home village and the grannies flooded in seeking help raising their grandchildren left orphaned by AIDS.”  His life has not been the same since.
This lecture will be broadcast via webcast at the Dogwood Center from 12:30 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.  Admission is free.

“Beyond Multi-Culturalism to True Community” with Nikki Toyama-Szeto
Webcast provided by Calvin College, Fremont Area Community Foundation, and the Dogwood Center.
Nikki Toyama-Szeto is on staff at InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and serves as the Program Director for Urbana, a student missions conference that gathers 20,000 students from 120 different countries.  Urbana has been running triennially since 1946 and over 200,00 people have attended.  She consults and speaks for a variety of campuses, churches and organizations and currently sits on the board of Mission Year, serving as their chairperson of the multi-ethnicity committee. 
Much of her insights stem from experiences living among the poor people in the slums of Nairobi, Cairo, and Bangkok.  Prior to entering ministry, Nikki spent several years working as an engineer in Silicon Valley.  She is the co-editor of More Than Serving Tea, a collection of essays, stories and poems looking at the intersection of race, gender and faith for Asian-American women.
This lecture will be broadcast via webcast at the Dogwood Center from 12:30 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.  Admission is free.

Kathy Lamar is back in the Black Box!  LaMar has displayed her vocal talents from Vegas to Shang-hi for the past 20 years and is a favorite performer in the Black Box at the Dogwood.  Kathy has supplied her vocal talents to the likes of Lola Falana, Wayne Newton, Gladys Knight, The Four Tops, and even Todd Rundgren in 2010! 
Her style ranges from Billy Holiday, Nancy Wilson, Anita Baker, Tina Turner, Sade and Ella Fitzgerald with her sultry Jazz, R/B, and Blues sound. Kathy sings with Ronald McNeir, of the legendary Motown group the Four Tops, on his CD Ronnie Mac & Company. 
With a smoky evocative voice, she has mesmerized audiences and captured the hearts of Jazz and R/B lovers around the globe.   She was born and raised in Grand Rapids and is back in Michigan!
Accomplished accompianist Bob Van Stee started playing piano by ear at the age of 7.  Some of the bands he has worked with are The New World Singers during the 1960’s, Kenny Gordon & the Sound Gathering and Checkers Morton during the 1970’s, Turning Point in the 1980’s, and Madhouse in the 1990’s. 
Tickets $12. 7:30 p.m. Black Box.  Tickets available now! 
Buy Tickets here!
The Dogwood Center Box Office is open Monday – Friday, 9:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. and one hour prior to an event.  For information, phone 231.924.8885.

“First Person: Seeing America” by Ensemble Galilei with NPR’s Neal Conan & Lily Knight
Webcast provided by Calvin College, Fremont Area Community Foundation, and the Dogwood Center.
From its inception of 1990, Ensemble Galilei has redefined the boundaries of chamber music, created new work, seized opportunities for collaborative relationships and consistently pushed the envelope in a series of innovative projects that explore combinations of images, words, and music. 
In “First Person:  Seeing America”, one expereinces a combination of iconic photographs from the Metropolitan Museum of Art – searing pictures of the Civil War and haunting portraits from the Great Depression – with the music of Ensemble Galilei and narration by NPR’s Neal Conan and actress Lily Knight to create a powerful multi-media performance.
This lecture will be broadcast via webcast at the Dogwood Center from 12:30 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.  Admission is free.