Author: Holly Metz Doyle

A Buffalo native, Holly spent quite a bit of time traveling the globe, but after living on the West coast for a bit was called back to her roots in Western New York.

Oh 2020, what stress you have brought to us all. And now in the midst of full-on holiday mode, what can we do to make this unusual year a bit more tolerable and perhaps, dare I say, enjoyable? Meet three local, woman-owned businesses that are offering a little something special this December. These businesses and the women who run them understand that small conscientious shifts can have substantial ripple effects, and may be exactly what we need right about now. Healthy Helper Kaila Proulx is a health and wellness dynamo. She began her business, Healthy Helper, while in high school,…

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Niagara Falls native Angelo Ashker grew up scooping ice cream in his dad’s local ice cream shop. After 30 years of business his dad Ron called it quits, but the entrepreneurial gene runs in the Ashker family, and around 2000 Angelo re-opened Ashker’s Ice Cream shop in the Falls while studying at UB. Eight years later Ashker’s relocated to Lewiston with a new business model – a Juice Bar – the first in Western New York. Though juices and smoothies were a booming market on the West Coast, the trend took its time to gain popularity on this side of…

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In 2017 Gary Wieczorek had been working in the produce industry for well over 20 years. His experience in all aspects of the wholesale and retail sides of the business ultimately led him to a position as a food safety expert with the FDA. During those years Gary witnessed disturbing occurrences of food waste within this highly perishable industry. Not only was he watching unpurchased food being thrown into dumpsters, he also learned that 25-40% of fruits and vegetables were being unpicked at the farm level. Farmers know that at a grocery store, consumers will always choose the unblemished item…

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Recently I visited The Bird’s Nest Circus Arts and was amazed while watching students accomplish relatively simple moves in the beginner class I attended. I could only imagine what the professional performers must look like. If you’re like me and are amazed by the ability and agility of circus arts performers who combine dance and acrobatics with grace and precision, you’ll not want to miss The Circus Grimm: A Tale of Hansel and Gretel, a cirque performance in conjunction with Buffalo’s Curtain Up! Curtain Up! takes place this Friday, September 20th, and is Buffalo’s annual celebration of the opening of the…

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Have you ever been asked the question, “What would you prefer, to be a little too hot or a little too cold?” I’ve always responded to this simple question with a resounding, “Too hot!” I love to be warm, love the sun. Steamy summer night – bring it on. So when I accepted the offer to investigate Buffalo Cryo by stepping inside a chamber ranging between -180 and – 250 degrees Fahrenheit, I thought I might be losing my mind just a tiny bit. Buffalo Cryo is located on the first floor of the Fairmont Creamery Building at 199 Scott…

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Perhaps you have heard of the Slow Food Movement. Begun in Italy, in protest to a McDonalds opening in historic Piazza de Spagna in Rome in 1986, Italian food and wine expert Carlo Petrini led a global protest against fast food. Proponents of the slow food movement believe that food should be grown and bought locally, prepared with care, and consumed with appreciation while preserving traditional and regional cuisine. Enter Slow Fashion. The term “Slow Fashion” was coined in a 2007 article by Kate Fletcher published in The Ecologist )where she states, “Slow fashion is about designing, producing, consuming and…

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I first heard about The Bird’s Nest Circus Arts during a cupping session with Toni Haugen of Queen City Acupuncture. Haugen and I were talking about different types of wellness in WNY and she oh so casually mentioned that she was an aerialist, a trapeze aerialist to be more precise. To say I was intrigued would be an understatement. Haugen said she practiced at The Bird’s Nest so I went to their website to investigate, and read, “The Bird’s Nest is a community space dedicated to creative play, movement, and connection. This facility is the first in our region to…

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Stitch Buffalo on Niagara Street is full of dynamic energy, incredible artistic workmanship, and beautiful women with compelling stories. We’ve only touched the surface of their souls, but we are very proud to introduce you to Hkawng Lung, MuMu, Dah John, and NuPan all from Burma and Bina Biswa from Bhutan. Each of these women learned their skill of intricate embroidery while living in refugee camps as part of their journey to America. They continue to hone their craft at Stitch Buffalo under the guidance of fiber specialist and Stitch founder Dawne Hoeg. Their faces reflect the complexity of their…

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“You don’t have to suffer continual chaos in order to grow.” A simple sentence of complex proportions made by Dr. John C. Lilly, a neurophysiologist and psychoanalyst who, among other things, conducted research in 1954 to examine how the brain would react when it was denied external stimulation. This research brought about the development of isolation tanks. Lilly writes of his experiments and the tanks, “In our experiments, the subject is suspended with the body and all but the top of the head immersed in a tank containing slowly flowing water at 34.5 degrees C. (94.5 degrees F.), wears a…

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