This morning Kristi Kane, host of ElderCircle Forum talked with Penny Butterfield and Natalie DeRoock about First Call for Help.  Penny gave some history about the non-profit.  They started as a tiny agency called Nightingale in the basement of the old hospital in 1974.  Their mission is to provide free, confidential and nonjudgmental crisis intervention, active listening and information and referral services 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.  Last year alone they took close to 20,000 calls, 7,000 of those calls were crisis calls.  First...

The Community Room at the Grand Rapids Area Library was filled with people on Thursday, February 21. They were gathered there to hear Kim Heikkila, author and college professor, talk about her book: “Sisterhood of War: Minnesota Women in Viet Nam.” During her presentation, she discussed the role women played in general during the war, and followed this by sharing the stories of two individual women's experiences. Recorded by ICTV staff, this program can be seen on ICTV’s Public Access Channel on Thursday, February 28 at 7:30pm; and Saturday, March 2 at 5:...

Frieda Hall sat down with Moroccan filmmaker Hakim Belabbes this week to talk about film, life and the inter-human connections that the medium can bring to bridge cultures. Belabbes came to town because of Caravanserai, an international program that attempts to create new pathways for Americans to experience the diversity of contemporary Muslim artistic expressions by introducing U.S. audiences to exciting and dynamic artists from the Muslim world - all hosted at the Myles Reif Performing Arts Center. The Moroccan filmmaker was available for the screening of two of his early films: "...

As you know ICTV has moved to a new location.  One of the biggest differences about our new space is our studio space is much, much smaller.  With our old studio we had room for three separate spaces.  We had a log cabin area to produce Tom Chapin’s Just Outdoors series.  We had an area with a brown background that we used for news programs and a third large area with a grey background that could accommodate a group of up to five people.  So we’ve had to be creative.  We videotaped one Just Outdoors program in our new space and just...

Keep an eye out for our new 30th anniversary promo preceding news and government meetings. Join the celebration!