Tag Archives: Express Employment Professinals

Growing Hope: H.O.P.E. Gardens provides essential food and resources for Wyoming families

Growing Dreams: A New Community Garden for Families & Neighbors (Video courtesy of H.O.P.E. Gardens)


By AnchorPoint Christian School Youth Contributors


AnchorPoint students help plant garlic in the new garden (Courtesy, Kim Omanchi APCS)

H.O.P.E. Gardens stands for Help Other People Eat. Located in Grand Rapids, H.O.P.E. Gardens is dedicated to making a positive change in local communities by helping families and individuals grow their own food.

Teaching community members how to cultivate fresh and sustainable food resources gives individuals and families better access to nutritious and affordable food.

Founded in 2015 by Rich and Julie Brunson, who each experienced food insecurity problems early in their lives, H.O.P.E. Gardens has expanded to educate local communities and organizations on the importance of sustainable food resources.

Family Network of Wyoming (FNW) has partnered with H.O.P.E. Gardens to provide that resource for local families.

“When we have gardens, and when we have access to fresh fruits and vegetables, it helps impact health,” said Javonte Tubbs, Executive Director at Family Network of Wyoming.

“If you eat healthy fruits and vegetables all day, you’re going to be in great health. Fresh fruits and vegetables have a lot of nutrients and vitamins and good things for your body.”

Realizing a dream, meeting a need

AnchorPoint Christian School – in collaboration with FNW, H.O.P.E. Gardens Executive Director Julie Brunson, and Express Employment Professionals & Specialized Recruiting Group of Grand Rapids owner Janis Petrini – recently helped install a no-till nature-based garden in Wyoming.

(Courtesy, Kim Omanchi APCS)

This garden came to fruition as a way to honor Theresa Drost, a valued employee of Express Pros who recently passed away.

“Theresa’s passion was having a garden and a beautification place around the garden,” said Tubbs. “Janis and Julie got together to find a location to have a garden in memory of Theresa. Family Network of Wyoming had the space and wanted to do a garden as well. It was a perfect partnership.”

That dream was realized as AnchorPoint students prepared the land to begin a new garden where local families will come together to grow food and community.

(Courtesy, Kim Omanchi APCS)

“The Kent County Needs Assessment states that one out of six adults experiences food insecurity,” said Tubbs. “That means we need more community gardens, we need more access to healthy fruits and vegetables. Pantries and gardens are places that provide that access.”

Tubbs says there will be people from the community who come to help plant the food, and who will also receive some of that food for their families. And Tubbs plans to join in the fun.

“I love to help,” Tubbs said. “What makes people want to help is a sense of community, a sense of togetherness.”

Butterfly gardens and toad houses – both excellent contributors to the environment – can also be found at H.O.P.E. Gardens.

A willingness to help

Tubbs joined FNW in October of 2023 and said he enjoys both the people and the work.

(Courtesy, Kim Omanchi APCS)

“I like Julie and H.O.P.E. Gardens because they have a passion to connect people with healthy fruit and vegetables,” said Tubbs.

“My favorite part of working at Family Network is the volunteers,” Tubbs continued. “Their passion to help, their willingness to be there, to be present, and to be there with smiles. There is a lot of great energy there; everybody is willing to help.”

Growing food…and passion!

H.O.P.E. Gardens is making a change that begins with our youth and fostering a passion for growing food through interactive, eco-friendly learning experiences.

That passion is evident in the students at AnchorPoint. These local students will continue helping with the FNW garden by planting seeds in the spring and participating in the harvest.

(Courtesy, Kim Omanchi APCS)

Resource links

For more information about H.O.P.E. Gardens, visit hopegardensgr.org. To learn more about the Family Network of Wyoming, visit fntw.org.

*View the “Growing Dreams” garden photo gallery below, courtesy of Kim Omanchi, APCS:

Contributors

This article was written and produced by the 3rd-4th grade students of Wyoming’s AnchorPoint Christian School under the direction of Team 2 teacher Kim Omanchi.

Team 2: Henry Bloomer, Elijah Ducher, Henrik Gagnon, Leonard Gagnon, Jaxon Glas, Logan Henderson, Toby Lehnen, Alan Perez, Nathan Simeon, Joseph Vasquez and Kareen Zuiderveen

Local employment agency offers free webinar to help local businesses

By Joanne Bailey-Boorsma
joanne@wktv.org


How do you manage a remote workforce? How and what to communicate to employees? How do you create an environment that reduces the spread of COVID-19?

These and many more questions are just some of what Express Employment Professionals, with offices in Wyoming, hope to answer during a free webinar Friday, March 20, at 9 a.m. The webinar is open to all business owners and leaders.

“I think at this point we have about 200 people signed up,” said David Robb, director of marketing for Express Employment Professionals. “We certainly are not coronavirus experts but we do want to help inform on some of the best HR practices and some of the legal ramifications.”

Robb said the webinar was a result of many of the questions that the Express Employment associates were hearing from business owners in how to deal with the impacts of the coronavirus. Concerns have included how to best support employees, managing a remote workforce and a workforce that can not be remote, safeguarding the business, and volunteer layoffs versus mandatory layoffs. Other questions have centered around if a company can require self-quarantine and if a company can send an employee home if the person is sick. 

“With the number of people who have registered, we will probably be polling to determine what the top five questions are and go from there,” Robb said, adding that Express Employment Professionals plan do some follow up by making this a series of webinars and videos to help answer questions related to business concerns as the coronavirus continues.

“We just want to aid the businesses and our community,” Robb said. “We do offer training here, but due to the situation, people are not coming in. So we wanted to do something that would be helpful to the businesses by discussing topics of how to respond as a leader and handling the potential mental stress from dealing with the coronavirus.”

To learn more about the webinar or to register, click here.

Defining what is ‘under the influence’ with marijuana leaves gray areas for businesses

By Joanne Bailey-Boorsma
joanne@wktv.org


Business owners and employers do no have to permit marijuana use or possession on their property was the main takeaway for a recent Wyoming Kentwood Area Chamber of Commerce meeting.

The program, which was this past spring at the Express Employment Professional offices in Wyoming, was focused on helping local business owners understand the impact of the November-approved marijuana act. The act, which allows for the use of recreational marijuana, went into effect in December. 

The reason business owners can restrict marijuana is that federal law still deems it as an illegal drug. 

“The federal law does supersede the state law,” said Heather Merrick, a professional/technical recruiter for Express Employment Professionals. “From an employer standpoint, we can stick to the federal guidelines. We can still have a drug enforcement policy within our organization and say we are 100 percent drug free and marijuana can be included in that even though it is legal under state law.”

Kent County Prosecuting Attorney Christopher Becker talks to local business owners about the Michigan Marijuana Act. (WKTV)

The bigger challenge is proving that a person is under the influence of marijuana when running equipment or at the job site, according to Kent County Prosecuting Attorney Christopher Becker. 

“Proponents were like lets treat this like alcohol and we can, but there is no per se limit for marijuana,” Becker said. For alcohol that limit is .08. The other issue is that alcohol has a bell curve where as marijuana does not, he said.

“You have five beers at eight o’clock in the morning…you are going to have a high alcohol content in your blood stream and that is going to go down by four or five o’clock and you are going to be fine, probably,” Becker said.

“Marijuana stays in for days. So one of your employees can go out on a Friday and smoke marijuana, come to work on Monday and still have marijuana in their system. Now is he impaired? Depends on the person and how it is impacting him.”

For an employer, they need to be able to show that marijuana is affecting the employee’s ability to operate a motor vehicle in a safe manner, not that it is just in the person’s system. 

“Legally, you can not operate, navigate or be in physical control of any motor vehicle, aircraft, snowmobile, off-road vehicle or motherboard while under the influence of marijuana,” Becker said. “We can do a blood test to say marijuana is in their system but just because marijuana is in their system does not mean they are operating under the influence.”

The prosecutor’s office  may not be able to charge criminally because it can not show the person is under the influence but civil liability may attach because a company has got an employee driving a motor vehicle or a hi-low while having marijuana in his/her system, Becker said, adding that some of these issues may have to be litigated in the courts.

Heather Merrick, from Express Employment Professionals, talks to local businesses about updating their drug testing policies. (WKTV)

With these gray areas on what is considered “under the influence,” now is the time for employers to take a look at any existing drug testing policies or create new ones, Merrick said.

There are three options that employers have. The first is to maintain a drug-free workplace. Those who are federally contracted or under specific federal guidelines must maintain a drug-free workplace because the federal government views marijuana as illegal, she said. 

Those who are not under federal rules have some factors to consider such as employment in Kent County is low, around 2.9 percent. Also, it is estimated that about 33 percent of workers will use marijuana in 2019. Statistics show that about 20 percent of people who are 26 or older are or will use marijuana, which could greatly reduce the possible pool of candidates for a business with a drug-free policy, Merrick said. 

Option two would be to continue doing pre-employment drug screening, continue doing accident injury drug screening but take marijuana out of that mix. Merrick said that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, OSHA, recommends that employers do not conduct any test if an accident would have happened regardless if the employee had taken drugs or alcohol. 

“Say someone gets stung by a bee and they go to the med center and they are under the influence of alcohol, marijuana or whatever it is, they would have been stung by that bee whether they have it in their system or not,” Merrick said. “But you test them, they come up positive and now you are terminating the employee. So OSHA says not to test in that scenario because it discourages people from reporting accidents and injuries if they know they are going to get terminated because they are going to come up positive on the drug screen.”

Now if the accident involves a hi-low and it was caused by an employee who potentially was impaired, then do the testing, she said, adding “OSHA wants people to report accidents, so that is how they are looking at it.”

The last option is to completely stop drug testing. This move could save money on drug testing but could cause some safety issues, Merrick said. 

Merrick did agree with Becker that until it is determined “what is under the influence” and how that is tested, businesses will be operating in somewhat of a gray area on the marijuana issue which makes it even more important for businesses to make sure that the company’s drug policy is in place and specifies what you will be testing for.

“Whether you have a policy or not, it is a good time for employers to look at what they have, revamp or put one together,” she said.