The Pokagon Band Community Center will be the place to be Thursday night, as the One Story program caps off another successful year with its second annual Epilogue Feast.

The banquet and presentation will take place from 6 to 8 p.m. at the community center, located at 27043 Potawatomi Trail, Dowagiac. Following a buffet-style Native American dinner, visitors will be given a presentation by Potawatomi botanist and author Robin Wall Kimmerer.

The event is free and open to the public. No reservation is required to attend.

Following a short welcoming song, organizers will serve dinner, which will consist of a buffalo roast, cod, wild rice casserole, acorn squash, fry bread, and berry cobbler, among other dishes. The dinner will be prepared by Pokagon Band citizen Madalene Big Bear.

Following dinner, visitors will listen to a performance of this year’s One Story program theme song before Kimmerer delivers her talk.

This is the second year that the One Story program — an annual communitywide reading program organized by the Pokagon Band and other Dowagiac institutions — has capped off its slate of activities with the feast. Last year, around 100 people attend the dinner, listening to a presentation about Pow Wow Etiquette from Jefferson Ballew, a traditionalist with the Pokagon Band.

With last year’s inaugural feast going off so well, organizers decided to pen a sequel for this year.

“It’s a way for us to give back to the public for everything they have given to us this past season,” said Kristie Bussler, the Pokagon Band’s educational resource specialist and one of the main coordinators of the One Story program.

Bussler invited Kimmerer to speak during Thursday’s program after attending a conference where the botanist spoke last year at the University of Notre Dame. Her presentation on nature ties in perfectly with this year’s One Story theme, “A Sense of Place,” Bussler said.

“The big thing I took away from her speech [last year] was that nature is our relative, not a resource,” she said. “When you start looking at nature from that viewpoint, you have to begin treating plant life well, since they are like your grandmother or sister.”

This year’s One Story program, which kicked off in February, focused on activities based around theme from two books: “Images of America: Dowagiac,” by Steve Arseneau and Ann Thompson, and “I Found No Peace,” by Webb Miller. Events from this year’s slate included a presentation about historic Dowagiac photos by Arseneau, the director of the Dowagiac History Museum; a talk about Miller, a famous journalist from Dowagiac, by local historian Jim Bussler; and a fire making demonstration by Ballew outside the library.

Besides exposing locals to two books that pertain to Dowagiac’s history, Bussler said this year’s One Story program has entertained and educated many attendees, from toddlers to the elderly.

“That has been a goal of mine all along — to make this a event people of all ages — and that is happening more and more,” she said.

For information, people may visit the One Story website, onestoryread.com.