Wyoming Public Schools (WPS) has partnered with Feeding America Mobile Pantry to host a Mobile Pantry once a month.
*WHS March Mobile Food Pantry will be held Monday, April 29 from 4:30 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.
What to expect
Though the selection of food varies each month, there are always a variety of fresh and frozen items available at the Mobile Pantry.
The Mobile Pantry is drive-thru style, and families are asked to remain in their vehicles for safety.
WHS Mobile Food Pantry Map (Courtesy, WPS)
Cars enter at the main entrance to WHS (1350 Prairie Parkway). Volunteers will direct traffic in the parking lot to help with efficiency.
Once in line, a volunteer will approach each car to record the name, address, number of people in the household, and the reason the food is needed for each family. Once a car has reached the front of the line, volunteers will load a box of food into the trunk.
Resources
To learn more about Feeding America West Michigan and the services they offer, click here.
For the Feeding America Mobile Food Pantry schedule, click here.
Wyoming Public Schools (WPS) has partnered with Feeding America Mobile Pantry to host a Mobile Pantry once a month.
*WHS March Mobile Food Pantry will be held Monday, March 25 from 4:30 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.
What to expect
Though the selection of food varies each month, there are always a variety of fresh and frozen items available at the Mobile Pantry.
The Mobile Pantry is drive-thru style, and families are asked to remain in their vehicles for safety.
WHS Mobile Food Pantry Map (Courtesy, WPS)
Cars enter at the main entrance to WHS (1350 Prairie Parkway). Volunteers will direct traffic in the parking lot to help with efficiency.
Once in line, a volunteer will approach each car to record the name, address, number of people in the household, and the reason the food is needed for each family. Once a car has reached the front of the line, volunteers will load a box of food into the trunk.
Resources
To learn more about Feeding America West Michigan and the services they offer, click here.
For the Feeding America Mobile Food Pantry schedule, click here.
Wyoming Community Foundation Chair Greg King sit-down with WKTV Journal’s Managing Editor Joanne Bailey-Boorsma to talk about the Wyoming Community Foundation. (WKTV)
For Wyoming’s Oriole Park Elementary, it was getting a set of recycling bins to help with its recycling effort. For the YMCA of Greater Grand Rapids , it was supporting its Y Achievers Program to bring it to the middle and high school students at Godwin Heights and Godfrey Lee schools.
Since 1992, this is the kind of support that the Wyoming Community Foundation has been providing to the City of Wyoming through its two grant programs.
“It kind of came about as a group of individuals who came together looking to do community stewardship,” said Greg King, who recently became the chair of the Wyoming Community Foundation. “That there were so many different needs going on in Wyoming, and how could this group help fund and support them going forward.”
A few years ago, the Wyoming Community Foundation helped fund new recycling bins for Wyoming’s Oriole Park Elementary School. (WKTV)
The foundation is an affiliate of the Grand Rapids Foundation which King said the Grand Rapids Community Foundation handles most of the administration details for the Foundation. In fact, the Grand Rapids Community Foundation lists five community affiliate funds that include the communities of Ionia, Hudsonville-Jension, Lowell, Sparta, and Wyoming.
The Wyoming Community Foundation ten-member board, which makes decisions on who will receive grants, is made up of community and City of Wyoming business leaders such as Lillian Vanderveen, owner of Lenger Travel, and Chris Hall, former chair and Inner City Christian Federation community homes initiative manager.
The Wyoming Community Foundation awards two types of grants, general fund grants and Youth Advisory Committee grants. Currently, the Youth Advisory Committee program is on hiatus for a year as the group looks to revamp the program. King said the plan is to work with schools that have a footprint in the City of Wyoming to identify the issues the youth committee should focus on. Those schools are Wyoming Public Schools, Godfrey-Lee Public Schools, Godwin Heights Public Schools and Kelloggsville Public Schools,
“ [We are] looking at some of the priorities that have changed,” King said. “The priorities that the act [which created the Youth Advisory Committee] had were back from 2016. Things have changed in the past four years. We are looking at getting more input from the schools on what the giving priority should be for our youth.”
Through the foundation’s general fund, the Wyoming Community Foundation did award about $14,000 to six different organizations in 2019. All of the organizations had programs that would directly benefit the City of Wyoming residents, King said. Those groups included Affinity Mentoring, Feeding America Mobile Food Pantries, Junior Achievement, Senior Sing-Along, UCOM’s Eat Healthy, Be Healthy, and the YMCA’s Y Achievers.
Any 501c3 organization that works within the city may apply for a grant. The application process opens in July and ends the second Friday in September. Decisions are announced by Oct. 31. The Youth Advisory Committee grant process usually starts in February.
King said the Foundation can also serve as a springboard for organizations looking for other funding opportunities or residents looking for volunteer possibilities within the community. In fact, King said the Wyoming Community Foundation is currently looking to expand its board and interested residents can contact the Wyoming Community Foundation through its website, https://www.grfoundation.org/about/regional-affiliates/wyoming, or Facebook page.
With more than a 1,000 traffic fatalities in the state of Michigan, distracted driving has certainly become a concern with law enforcement.
The Wyoming Department of Public Safety, through a recent grant from the GM Foundation, hopes to educate area students about the dangers of distracted driving from alcohol to cell phones.
“We are going to be going into all of our local high schools partnering with them and bringing in the Save a Life tour. We will have some presentations and hopefully some interactive displays with the teenagers there just showing them the potential of distracted driving and the consequences that could be,” said Wyoming Chief Kim Koster.
An interactive display from Save a Life.
The Greater Wyoming Community Resource Alliance, which received the grant, plans to help the Wyoming Department of Public Safety bring in the program Save a Life, an international campaign designed to get the message out about the dangers of distracted driving. The program includes highly advanced impaired and distracted driving simulators that give participants a completely realistic, sober perspective on the effects of driving while impaired or distracted.
“We are receiving generously from General Motors a check that will be used specifically by our police department for distracted drivers,” said Mayor Jack Poll, who was at the opening ceremonies or the 28th Street Metro Cruise where the grants were presented. The 28th Street Metro Cruise is usually the last weekend in August.
For the past several years GM has recognized and supported local organizations that help with a number of projects within the community. The GM Community Grants program, funded by the GM Foundation, is providing about $2 million to hundreds of organizations in 48 communities where GM employees live and work. Of that amount, $30,000 was awarded to the GM Components Holdings LLC in Wyoming to give to local organizations.
GM Foundation awards three grants totaling $30,000 recently at the 2018 28th Street Metro Cruise.
That amount was split between three organizations, the Greater Wyoming Community Resource Alliance, the West Michigan Environmental Action Council (WMEAC), and Feeding America.
WMEAC will use most of its grant money toward its Teach the Watershed program at Godfrey Lee Elementary School, said WMEAC Director of Development Mary Robinson.
“We work specifically with fourth graders to teach them about the watershed and air pollution and how then can be actors in stopping pollution,” Robinson said. “We will also have a fall water festival that will include kids from the elementary school but also from the early childhood center.”
The last group was the Feeding America West Michigan Food Bank which will utilize the grant to help support 14 school mobile pantries feeding more than 14,000 families. One of the locations is Wyoming’s Parkview Elementary.
Members of the various organizations that received grant monies totaling $25,000 braved the rain to participate in this year’s 28th Street Metro Cruise.
For almost a year the Blue Star Moms have been working to raise $40,000 to renovate the Grand Rapids Home for Veterans’ community room, the Cozy Corners.
“They have done a fantastic job and received a $30,000 grant from SpartanNash Company [owners of Family Fare, D&W and other grocery stores],” said Tiffany Carr, director of member and community relations for the home. Carr also works with the Finish the Mission Veterans Relief Fund. Along with the Freedom Cruise, the Finish the Mission Veterans Relief Fund focuses on capital improvement projects for the home along with assisting individual veterans.
“The Blue Star Moms came to us about the Cozy Corners project and we said, ‘How much do you need?'” Carr said, adding that the $5,000 grant received from the GM Foundation on Saturday during the 28th Street Metro Cruise will help wrap up the fundraising efforts so that renovation on the community room could start in the next 30 days.
For the past several years GM has recognized and supported local organizations that help with a number of projects within the community. The GM Community Grants program, funded by the GM Foundation, is providing $2 million to hundreds of organizations in 47 communities where GM employees live and work. Of that amount, $25,000 was awarded to the General Motors Grand Rapids Components Operations in Wyoming to give to local organizations.
“We actually start the process by surveying our employees,” said Grand Rapids Components Operations Personal Director Dale Johnson. “We ask them where they are volunteering and what organizations they are participating with.”
From there, the list of possible organizations are reviewed with the goal being to select a broad spectrum of groups with various initiatives, health, education, human services, environmental and community development, Johnson said. This Grand Rapids Components Operations awarded $5,000 grants to five organizations: Finish the Mission Veterans Relief Fund, Feeding America, the YWCA, the West Michigan Environmental Action Council and the Greater Wyoming Community Resource Alliance.
The Greater Wyoming Community Resource Alliance provides scholarships for Wyoming families to participate in health, wellness and recreational activities. City Manager Curtis Holt said the Alliance has been the recipient of grants from GM in the past and are honored to have again been selected again this year.
“It’s a real honor to know that the employees were the ones who help select the groups,” said YWCA Development Community Coordinator Amber Jones. The YWCA plans to use its grant for its Girls Inc. Leadership and Community Action program which is designed to help foster future leaders in the communities where people live.
“Our primary services focus on sexual assault and domestic violence,” Jones said. “We have a pressing need for help after something has happened and do not always have the funds for prevention. This money will be specifically set aside for that program.”
The West Michigan Environmental Action Council will use its funds for the Teach for the Watershed program at Godfrey Lee Elementary School. This program teaches science in the field and the stream with mentors from GM volunteering to help the students learn about science and to make a connection between science-based careers. The money also will help with the 13th Annual Mayors’ Grand River Clean Up set for Sept. 10.
The Feeding America – West Michigan Food Bank will use its grant toward the support of its School Mobile Pantries which has feed more than 1,200 families during a four-month period. At Parkview Elementary, less than a mile from the GM facility, the School Mobile Pantry distributes 7,500 pounds of fresh produce, dairy products, and grains.
We are fortunate to have a non-profit like Feeding America West Michigan in our community. Recently, they held their summer fundraising luncheon honoring those individuals and organizations that have gone above and beyond to assist those in need of food assistance throughout West Michigan, as well as the Upper Peninsula. Ken Estelle, CEO of Feeding America West Michigan, shared that distribution was up 10% over last year, totaling 26.5 million pounds of food provided through associated pantries, mobile food trucks, and other hunger-relief agencies. Though the economy may be slowing improving, “a lot of people are still struggling,” stated Estelle. He emphasized that solving hunger here in our community requires “many hands” and the importance of organizations, corporations, churches, and individuals working together.
Feeding America Artwork by Local Artist Reb Roberts.
Honored this year was Food Donor, Kellogg Company, having donated over 740,000 pounds of food, as well as contributing an endless supply of volunteers and funding. The Nelis family were awarded the Excellence in Advocacy award for their tireless efforts in raising awareness. The Outstanding Partner Agency was awarded to Love INC Newaygo who serve over 900 families a month, running 15 mobile pantries. Since 2006 Love INC has distributed 3.8 million pounds of food. The Feeding America West Michigan Food Bank has over 3,00 volunteers, and Carole Griffeth was honored with the Exceptional Volunteer award, putting in 2400 hours of service since 2009.
While Feeding America and their many volunteer groups are known for distributing needed food assistance, perhaps the most engaging testimony of the day was given to a women who has been on the receiving end of assistance, Michele Childs. She is currently a client of Streams of Hope, an affiliate of FAWM, located in the Townline community of Kentwood. Just 3 years ago, Childs shared, she was told she was super morbidly obese. Super morbid obesity is defined as having a body mass index (BMI) of 50+–normal being 19-24.
“At 40 years old I could not tie my shoes, get in or out of a bathtub, or fit in a restaurant booth,” she explained.
“I guess it’s true you are what you eat because I ate comfort foods, high in calories, carbs, sodium, and saturated fats.”
Childs and a dear friend, Charnette Perry, who was suffering from obesity, diabetes, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, made a promise to each other to get healthy. After Charnette passed, at the age of 44, Childs felt the need to fulfill that promise. A struggling single mother of 2, having survived an abusive relationship, Childs was in a dark place and found herself at nearly 400 pounds. She admits that she was “clueless how to purchase and cook food” to improve her health. She needed help.
From Left to Right: Regina Thomas, Michelle Childs, and Barbara Nauta. Photo by Kathryn Gray
Knowing that she would do “whatever it took,” Childs underwent bariatric surgery in October 2011. Dealing with diabetes that was out of control, Childs’ dietician introduced her to the Spectrum Nutritional Options for Wellness (NOW) program at Streams of Hope. She shared that the first time she visited the food pantry she felt humiliated. Fortunately, Childs found that the staff and volunteers passed no judgment but were instead eager to help her with more than just food assistance. The staff provided not only calorie information but the right kinds of food, combined with exercise and education for making lifestyle changes.
Barbara Nauta, organizational leader for Streams of Hope, explains that beyond providing food assistance, SOH provides educational and emotional support, building relationships, mentoring, and meeting family needs, all leading to healthier communities. Streams of Hope currently serves 5800 families, providing 336,000 pounds of food, while providing exercise classes, student tutoring, and a community garden. As healthy lifestyle choices are not just for adults, SOH is gearing up for the 2nd annual World Cup Readers Soccer Camp, engaging kids in reading activities combined with games and sports, including a nightly cook-out.
Michele Childs is surrounded by friends and supporters. Photo by Kathryn Gray
“Surgery is just a tool,” explains Childs. “The programs and classes at Streams of Hope helped me before and after.” Childs has a brighter outlook today. Currently she has lost 180 pounds. She was not flown to a glorious ranch, did not have a personal trainer at her beck and call for months, or compete for a $250,000 grand prize. Michele Childs made a promise and with the help of Streams of Hope, is a beautiful example of the Biggest Loser in Kentwood. She shines as she proclaims, “I eat right for my life!”
Feeding America West Michigan and Streams of Hope are always in need of help: be it volunteers, food donations, or monetary contributions. As Ken Estelle shared, there are still a lot of people struggling, wondering where their next meal will come from. One in four children in West Michigan are still considered “food insecure.” We all have a role to play in ensuring that those in need find the food resources available in our community. To volunteer, or to make food or monetary donations go to Feedingamericawestmichigan.org.
For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me. Matthew 25:35
