You can listen to the iheartGrandRapids podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, and Google Play.
Click here to view iheartGrandRapids' website.
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Hosts Tiffany Szakal and Luke Ferris are recording their conversations at various locations around the city. /Eric Hollis
Conversations on the love affair between Grand Rapids and its people. /Courtesy of iheartGrandRapids
These are the spaces that Grand Rapidians gather to talk about what’s going on in their life and in their community. On plush chairs in the corner of a downtown coffee shop. In the booth at the neighborhood brewery. Walking together on a city park sidewalk. The conversations may be intense like affordable housing or on the lighter side like a back and forth about the best cup of coffee in town.
That’s why I, Luke Ferris, and Tiffany Szakal started the iheartGrandRapids podcast. We wanted to create a space for conversations on the love affair between Grand Rapids and its people. And much like a relationship these conversations can be joyful, passionate, and frustrating. Our goal is to echo and amplify residents with discussions on the good, the bad and areas for improvement within the city to foster dialogue that dives deeper than making another Top 10 list.
Grand Rapidians can’t celebrate the wins of the city without learning from the losses and we can’t create the future without addressing the realities of today. Now, we don’t have the audacity to think we can change a city in a 20 minute podcast twice a month, but we expect our conversations and stories to encourage citizens to impact the places that matter to them.
The iheartGrandRapids Podcast is a space to openly discuss every facet of local life and we hope that the mobility of the podcast will be responsive to where the audience is listening—walking downtown, biking to work, listening in a cafe, on a lunch break, or in the comfort of home. That’s why we are recording in the field. Visiting the places and talking to the people that are pieces to the larger puzzle of the city.
This podcast is meant to be entertaining and provoking. It’s not for the faint of heart or the casual. The iheartGrandRapids Podcast is for the people who live and love Grand Rapids. So let’s talk...
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