"Small Town With Big Cool"

   by Emily Tyra

   Traverse Magazine, October 2009

   www.MyNorth.com

On a brisk walk around Traverse City's Boardman Lake, Angeline Piotrowski points to a group of tiny Sunfish sailboats navigated by even tinier captains.  Her two boys, Dominik, 5, and David 3, are still too young to join Traverse Area Community Sailing's Youth Camp, but, she says, this is just one example of why Traverse City is a great place to raise kids.  "I love all the surf and turf attrations -- how we really use our outdoor spaces," she says.  She also digs the schools, "Here the public scools are on par with the private -- TCAPS has excellent facilities and staff and a 98% graduation rate.  And even the private schools are reasonably priced."

But when Piotrowski first moved to T.C. with her boys and her husband Michael from Los Angeles two years ago, she felt isolated.  "Michael travels often for work, an in the winter the sidewalks rolled up.  I felt like all I did was bundle the boys in snow gear and carry them through the snow to the grocery story," she says.  "When you're new to the area or new to parenthood, you aren't plugged into a support network."