A great ministry that serves the community well. The staff is great, and it feels like a family…read morethere.

Kids Food Basket…read more Fighting childhood hunger is more important than ever, and Kids Food Basket works to help feed children who are at or near the poverty level. In 2002, KFB started by serving 125 kids every weekday through their Sack Supper program, and today, they serve approximately 8,800 kids every day. EVERY DAY! One of our favorite ways to volunteer with @kidsfoodbasket is by decorating paper sack supper bags! It's fun to do by yourself, with your family, and great for kids too! Plus, you can teach your kids about the mission of KFB and knowing that by decorating an ordinary lunch bag, you'll be making a child smile. For other ways you can volunteer and help, head to their website! kidsfoodbasket.org

Kids' Food Basket provides local children with access to healthy, nutritious food. They provide…read more"sack suppers" to children at schools in Grand Rapids, Muskegon and Holland. These sack suppers are distributed at school and taken home. Volunteering at Kids' Food Basket is fun, easy and makes a difference in your own community. To volunteer, check their website and sign up for an account. They have a calendar where you can view all shifts and sign up yourself individually or a group. The sack supper prep typically includes breaking down bulk food items into individual servings (in the past I have put granola or snap peas into ziplock bags and separated pudding cups, etc.). Shifts are usually an hour long and they go by quickly! The staff working are all very friendly and appreciative. They rely heavily on volunteers and save millions of dollars each year by utilizing volunteers. Definitely check out KFB if you're looking for a volunteer opportunity. Shifts fill up quickly, so check their calendar early and often! You can also help out with offsite projects - my friends and I got together around Thanksgiving last year to put together supper packs which consist of juice boxes, fruit cups, granola bars, raisins, crackers, etc. It was a super easy and fun way to give back while getting a group of friends together.

The mission of Friends of Grand Rapids Parks is to empower people to cultivate vibrant parks,…read moretrees, and green spaces in the Grand Rapids community. Their vision is thriving parks and a sustainable urban forest that actively supports our community's economic, environmental, and cultural health. (Source: https://www.friendsofgrparks.org/about/) Friends of GR Parks works closely with the City of Grand Rapids parks department but is its own nonprofit organization. This group does many awesome things for our city, including tree planting and care, park cleanup events, special events like Beautify and BBQ, tree ID workshops, and their annual Green Gala fundraiser. Of course during COVID times many of these events look a little different, but the mission stays the same. Access to parks and green space is a basic need that Friends of GR Parks believes should be accessible for everyone. This is a belief that I share as well, so it's fun to follow along and help out with projects as I'm able. This summer my boyfriend and I attended the Friends' Green Gala, albeit remotely. They planned a fun and delicious picnic with options for staying at Ah-nab-awen Park for music and outdoor fun, but we opted to take our picnic home. The pickup process was easy, the food was delicious, and the Spotify playlist was the perfect accompaniment to our home picnic. We've also been involved in beautification projects at Highland Park and helped set up a Little Free Library at the park too! If you're looking for a place to volunteer, check out Friends of Grand Rapids Parks. Follow along on their social media if you're interested in learning about our 70+ parks in the city, or want to check out improvements being made!

This is a warm, welcoming community with plenty of opportunities for serving the community. in…read moretraditional style, it never avoids the opportunity to engage modern applications of the service that are welcoming to all . Built in the early 1900's has committed to the 21st-century with changed interiors. I find it a welcome place to worship.

Great downtown church in the heart of the city. Very pretty inside. A wide variety of people…read moreattend from all around the Grand Rapids area. Programs for all, from children through adults and seniors. Strong music program and good sermons. If you are shopping churches downtown, you really should plan to visit here.

Mel Trotter Ministries: A Resident's Reality This place…read morewakes you up around 6:50 AM, then forces you to stay until 9:00 AM if you want to access your belongings from storage and get back in. You can leave as soon as you get up, but then you won't have the stuff that you need. Their heat only seems to be at the proper temperature on certain floors; the main lobby, where we are forced to be if we aren't leaving, is not one of those areas. They give you a small blanket and sheet and expect you to be warm enough. Their food quality and quantity are not enough--restrictive meal times, no lunch, and small portions. Wifi is available, but you're not allowed to use it. The TV is on only for a limited time and only plays the news. There is no real sign of the advertised "enrichment" programs. Instead, the programs that do exist favor select people, creating a tiered or hierarchical system. The south side is for employed residents and comes with more privileges, while the north side is "in the trenches," where residents are exposed to unpredictable and sometimes chaotic situations, including illness and bodily harm. The Night-Shift Problem perfectly illustrates this divide. For a resident working a shift like 10 PM - 7 AM, the standard 7 PM curfew can be waived with "documentation of reason." Once approved, a flag is put in the system to allow re-entry. However, the shelter typically forces these residents to stay on specific "program floors" so they won't be disturbed by the general population's 6:30 AM wake-up call. If you aren't in that specific program or don't have that flag, you're not getting back in. If you want a place to stay, you need to arrive around 9:00 AM. Regulars wake up first and reserve their beds for the day, and then everyone else reserves theirs. Rooms are shared (usually 2 per bunk bed) with a shared bathroom that can be locked from the outside. The shelter's operations are often inefficient. For example, severely intoxicated guests are technically not allowed under the MTM Code of Conduct, yet I've seen them admitted anyway, only to have to be picked up by an ambulance later. This slows down service for everyone else and creates unnecessary risk. Despite the decent rooms, free laundry, and security, the system is designed in a way that makes survival harder than it needs to be.

Mel Trotter Ministries is a beacon of hope and compassion in the heart of Grand Rapids. Their…read morecommitment to serving individuals experiencing homelessness goes far beyond providing shelter -- they offer dignity, support, and a path toward lasting transformation. Grateful for all they do to bring healing and restoration to so many lives.

AgrAbility has helped my grandmother keep her farm going in spite of her disabilities for years…read more Most recently the installed a garage door opener that has drastically improved her ability to do so on a day to day to basis. I would give 10 stars if possible

I saw a post on Instagram about clothing mending services at Treetops Collective and I had a dress…read moreI needed to be fixed, so I stopped by recently. I was so pleasantly surprised at this beautiful establishment, which houses the Treetops Collective nonprofit that supports refugee and immigrant women and children with various programs like women's empowerment groups, driver's training, mental health circles, and more. There is also a cafe that serves some pastries, coffee, and tea, as well as a very cute gift shop that has items made by refugees in America. The space also acts as a rentable venue, with various spaces available like office space, conference rooms, or the main event venue with a community kitchen and kids' playroom. You can even rent out the whole beautiful cafe. I brought in my dress and they fixed it up right away - it only took about 10 minutes and was $15. They employ refugee women and the work was very professional and polished. While I waited, I browsed the shop that has many lovely items like shirts with empowered messages, handmade cards, jewelry, accessories, and more. Then I ordered an iced matcha at the cafe - it was so smooth and the perfect level of slightly sweet. Their hours are quite limited (Tuesday-Thursday, 9 am-3 pm), but it's definitely worth checking out. I am going to be looking into other opportunities at Treetops Collective, like volunteering and their community events.

RJ Larson does a superior job at appraising real estate. Their service was wonderful and I found RJ…read moreto be very responsive to communications. I would highly recommend RJ Larson for your real estate needs.....

My bank recently sent out RJ Larson to do an appraisal for me and I am very disappointed with their…read morepoor methodology in determining the value of my property. I will give the disclaimer that my property is a unique duplex with some features that make it hard to find 1:1 comps. Given that disclaimer, RJ Larson undervalued my duplex easily by $50-100K. The refused to look beyond 1:1 comps in the market. Due to this, they came up with a per unit value and assigned both units an equal value. The problem with this method is that property ended up being valued in line with other duplexes with 1000 sq feet less of space! And all because it has one larger and one smaller unit. Not to mention they assigned $0 in value to a significant capital improvement I made (solar panels) because they couldn't find any other rental units with solar panels. It may be true that comps are hard to find, but it is outright false that the solar panels add no value to the property. I would like to give the benefit of the doubt and say they take a conservative approach to valuation, but in the case that would be far too generous. They blindly followed their metrics and ended up providing a valuation that was just flat out unusable and nonsense at face value, a pretty low bar, and now I'm out $500. Would not recommend.