Tag Archives: UCOM

Wyoming Community Foundation continues to focus on the needs of its community

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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)



By Joanne Bailey-Boorsma
joanne@wktv.org

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.

UCOM partners with Hydoz Water Purification to provide water to community

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A UCOM staff person checks out the new Hydroz purifying water filing station located in the organization’s lobby. The station is open to the public during business hours. (Supplied)

By Karrie Brown
UCOM

United Church Outreach Ministry (UCOM) recently partnered with Hydroz to provide a free purified water filing station in its neighborhood.  The station, installed last week, is in the lobby at UCOM, at 1311 Chicago Dr. SW Wyoming.  It will provide endless hot and cold purified water for those in the UCOM neighborhood.

The purified water filing station will be available to the community during UCOM’s regular hours, Monday through Wednesday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.  and Thursday from 2 to 8 p.m. Hydroz has generously donated this station for the neighbors to enjoy clean, pure drinking water. Hydroz is a locally owned water purification company, certified by the Better Business Bureau and Local First. 

They filter the water using reverse osmosis to remove 98% of impurities from tap water. This includes lead, arsenic, chromium-6, mercury, PFAS, chlorine, and more. Hydroz uses a four-stage filter process to remove impurities from the water and then stores it in a stainless steel holding tank, waiting for neighbors to fill their bottles. The water at UCOM was tested prior to the installation and was found to be within normal range of solid particulates for city drinking water, with just over 130 part per million. However, after the installation, water coming from the system was tested again and had less than 15 parts per million. Also, according to staff, it also tastes great.

   

UCOM’s Culture of Health recognizes water is the best beverage for healthy living. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) report that drinking water helps your body regulate your temperature, protect your spinal cord, joints, and other tissues, and helps in all of your bodily functions. Drinking water instead of sugar-sweetened beverages reduces the amount of calories a person takes in and the amount of added sugars. With obesity-related diseases like diabetes, heart disease, and kidney disease on the rise, drinking more water is a way to cut those added sugars and lower the risk of developing these diseases, according to the CDC.

In 2018, UCOM hosted neighborhood listening sessions. The UCOM team hoped to learn more about what people in the community enjoyed seeing at UCOM and also find out if there were things the community wanted to see done differently. One topic brought up by several participants was how proud they are of where they live and how sad they are to see empty water bottles or other garbage find its way into the streets, parking lots, and yards of the neighborhood. UCOM hopes that having a refiling station for water bottles will cut down on some plastic waste in the area and improve the beauty of the community we call home.

UCOM invites neighbors to stop in and fill their water bottles and help us thank Hydroz for bringing this service to our neighborhood!  Hydroz has a commitment to philanthropy and is proud to give back to this community. 

UCOM’s culture of health expansion leads to growth

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Karrie Brown

By WKTV Staff
joanne@wktv.org


United Church Outreach Ministry (UCOM) is pleased to announce that Karrie Brown has joined the organization as Development Director. She brings with her more than 10 years of experience working with non-profits advocating for social and economic justice for all community members.

“United Church Outreach Ministry has spent the past several years moving towards a new model of service for our community in southwestern Kent County.  Our Culture of Health has spread across all of our programs and has launched new initiatives.  In 2017 we expanded to include a low-cost Farm Stand which brings locally grown produce into our community.  With these new services for neighbors, UCOM needs to ensure that funding is available and that it grows to match the needs we meet.  Karrie  will be working on raising funds as well as community awareness of the good work our staff and volunteers are doing to end poverty and to improve the health of our neighbors,” says Dr. Bruce Roller, Executive Director of UCOM. 


Karrie most recently served as Executive Director at another Access of West Michigan Key Pantry, so she is aware of the mission and programs at UCOM as well as the need. “People are not just looking for resources; they are also searching for hope for a brighter future. UCOM walks alongside their neighbors to improve their quality of life.  I am excited to be a part of this wonderful team. I look forward to gaining additional funding for UCOM’s ongoing financial stability so that we can continue to serve the ever changing needs of the community,” says Karrie Brown.

For more information on the Culture of Health and other programs at UCOM, visit www.ucomgr.org

UCOM benefit concert a ‘great way’ to discover what it is all about, according to director

3-bottom, Citizen Journalism, City of Wyoming, , , ,

By Joanne Bailey-Boorsma

joanne@wktv.org

 

United Church Outreach Ministry, or UCOM, is the secret that is not a secret, according to its Executive Director Dr. Bruce Roller.

 

For more than 30 years, the organization has provided resources to those in the community who are low income, “trying to give them the hand that they need, whatever that hand is, to help them move to a better quality of life,” Roller said.

 

For the clientele, what UCOM provides is no secret. This has included providing food and clothing for immediate needs along with programs such as financial, health, and workforce development. One of those programs has been “tutoring and mentoring in public schools so that the children get the eduction they deserve and are able to move on in that next generation,” Roller said, adding that could include perhaps going to college, which for some may have not been an option.

 

However, for those not in need or having never needed services like what UCOM offers, the organization may seem like the “best kept secret in town.”

 

“I don’t really like to say that,” Roller said with laugh, “as it is my job that it isn’t.”

 

Julianne Howe-Bouwens, seen here rehearsing for a Grand Rapids Civic Theatre production, will perform at this year’s 14h Annual Friends of UCOM Benefit Concert. (Photo by now.wktv.org)

One of the best ways UCOM representatives have found to share with its community about its mission and work is through the 14th Annual Friends of UCOM Benefit Concert which is Sunday, March 12, at Plymouth United Church of Christ, 4010 Kalamazoo Ave. SE. Tickets are $25 with the event starting with a silent auction at 5 p.m. and a concert following at 6 p.m.

 

“This is a good place for people to jump in and begin to see what we do, Roller said. “They may begin to want to get involved in the work that is going on here.”

 

“This fundraiser, this effort, these people are so amazing,” said Julianne Howe-Bouwens, a local actress and singer who will be performing at Sunday’s Friends of UCOM Benefit Concert. “They help the community in so many ways by providing for people who are in need and it is such an honor for me to be a little part of that effort.”

 

Howe-Bouwens, who starred in Grand Rapids Civic Theatre’s “Sister Act” last year, will be joined by the area’s longest continuing choir, The Schubert Male Chorus. The entire program is coordinated by Phil Pletcher, who has lended his expertise to all of the benefit concerts these past 14 years, according to Roller.

 

The Schubert Male Chorus

UCOM was started in 1969 by the women of Smith Memorial Congregational United Church of Christ. The group began with a food collection and hot lunch program for students at neighboring Hall Elementary School, now Cesar E. Chavez Elementary School. As the group learned about its community needs, the program expanded and changed to fit them, with UCOM becoming what it is today. UCOM is now located 1311 Chicago Dr. SW, Wyoming and is part of the All County Churches Emergency Services System (ACCESS), serving those in southwest Grand Rapids, Grandville, and Wyoming.

 

Roller said he hopes through programs like the benefit concert that UCOM will continue to expand its efforts to meet the needs of those it serves.

 

For more about the 14th Annual Friends of UCOM Benefit Concert or UCOM, visit www.ucomgr.org.

Get to know your neighbor at the first-ever Wyoming Winterfest

3-bottom, Citizen Journalism, City of Kentwood, , , , , , ,

By Joanne Bailey-Boorsma

joanne@wktv.org

 

The group behind Wyoming’s one-on-one mentoring program is branching out with the first ever Wyoming Winterfest this Saturday, which is designed to get people out and talking to their neighbors.

 

Put together by the One Wyoming Community Collaborative – made up of a collaboration of schools, businesses, government, churches, nonprofits and residents to improve the quality of life in the community – the Wyoming Winterfest is the next step in working to bring residents, community leaders and business owners together to start the dialog of what they can do to improve their neighborhood, said Jon Shaner, the marketing director for the Salvation Army Kroc Center, one of the sponsors for the event.

 

“With the success of the one-on-one mentoring program, we began to look at what would be the next best thing we could do to help unite people together who might be interested in working within their own neighborhood to improve the quality of life,” Shaner said.

 

February was selected because “in the spring, people tend to be out and about and that is when the festivals start,” Shaner said. “But in January and February, this is a time when we tend to holed up with Netflix and hang out at home. We thought this would be a good way to get people out and talking to each other.”

 

The Wyoming Winterfest is similar to National Night Out, which takes place in August. This Saturday’s event will have seven different locations in various neighborhoods throughout the city. Each location has activities that have been planned by churches, residents and businesses of that neighborhood. Shaner said for example, the Kroc Center, which is located in the north end of the city, has partnered with groups in the Godwin Heights area such as the North Godwin Heights Business Association and Community Church. Each site will have its own slate of events, but all will feature free food, family-friendly activities and giveaways from businesses and other local organizations.

 

The DOCK/The PIER, located near Kelloggsville High School at 4669 S. Division Ave., will kick things off with free breakfast from 9 – 11:30 a.m. The morning program will include games and prizes and high school students reading various speeches from African American leaders from past and present. There also will be a reading corner for children.

 

Also taking place from 9 a.m. to noon, will be a variety of activities including a bounce house, basketball contests, games, blood pressure checks, snow sculpture contest (weather permitting) and more at the Wyoming Jr. High School, 2125 Wrenwood St. SW. Food will be available as well as vendor and informational booths. Activities will be accessible from the main parking lot on the east side of the building off of Wrenwood.

 

Activities at Vanguard Charter Academy, 1620 52nd St. SW, will run from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and include outdoor ice skating (weather permiting) and inflatables indoors. There also will be a coffee bar, hot chocolate and pizza as well as a snow dough snowman making contest.

 

Starting at noon, Calvary Church, 3500 Byron Center Ave., will be offering lunch, kids games, bingo, and tax consultation. The Calvary Church program runs from noon to 3 p.m.

 

Also starting at noon will be outdoor and indoor games including Zumba and a bounce house at Godfrey-Lee Early Childhood Center, 961 Joosten St. SW. There will be raffle prizes as well. The program at Godfrey-Lee runs until 4 p.m.

 

Community Church (Godwin Heights), 150 Burt Ave. SE, – the program the Kroc Center has partnered with – will be offering indoor games, Zumba classes and art from 1 to 4 p.m. Food also will be available.

 

Grace Bible College, 1011 Aldon St. SW, will have activities from 1 to 4 p.m. as well. Those activities include sledding and snow scupting (weather permitting) broom ball, ice skating, games, races and crafts.

 

The entire event is supported by several community organizations including The Salvation Army Kroc Center, Family Fare, Metro Health: University of Michigan Health, Wyoming Community Foundation, Roosevelt Park Ministries, and UCOM.

 

For more information about the event or about One Wyoming, visit onewyoming.com.