Over the past year Guiding Light has seen an increased need for food donations in the West Michigan community. Food Services Director Allen Holt has taken the lead in acquiring more donor sources and as a result we have seen a huge increase in the amount of foodstuffs (over one-hundred thousand pounds worth) that we have been able to acquire, and pass on to others as a result. In 2021, men directly under our care were fed three square meals a day and consumed a total of 36,458 pounds of food. The rest of our donations went out to the community. In 2021 we worked with several local non-profit organizations, food pantries, and churches to distribute 415,868 meals throughout West Michigan. [1]
Allen, who came to the doors of Guiding Light over a year ago to enroll in our Recovery program, has been instrumental in overhauling our food distribution network. “I came in as a client in June of 2020 and completed the program, and with my background in kitchens and cooking they offered me a job here,” he said. “I didn’t realize it would be more than just cooking. It’s phenomenal what we do and how we feed people because we’re a non-profit. It’s just amazing how God puts all this together and supplies one person or organization and then we have enough to give to the rest of the community. We could go further, but right now we keep it local and it’s working out just fine.” Allen is proud to be a part of the solution of a problem he had spent much of his life being on the other end of. He’s thankful to God and for Guiding Light’s willingness to take someone like him in and give him the help he needed to get back on his feet. “I gave in and this program got me straight, so now giving back is my ultimate goal…so the more I give the more rewarded I feel. And just to see the smiles on faces when they get this stuff…it’s amazing.”
As an organization Guiding Light is centered at the crossroads of private, non-profit, and community-based entities and is uniquely situated to collaborate and make sure that donated goods of all sorts get into the hands of those that need it most. As Food Services Director, Allen procures large quantities of donated foodstuffs from local companies and has a vast network of charitable and religious organizations in need to send them along to. We want to thank all of our partners for helping us with food distribution this year. Guiding Light is but one small part of a vast web of organizational connections, and it wouldn’t have been possible to feed so many last year if we weren’t all working together. It is important to note, also, that none of this would be possible without all the support that Guiding Light receives from all of you. All our tireless and generous donors, advocates, and volunteers, those who invest their spirit into the mission of Guiding Light, you are the ones that make all this possible. From all of us at Guiding Light, we would like to express our deepest gratitude from the bottom of our hearts for making all of this possible. Thank you, and God bless.
[1] https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18dcNCpFmutiOk1tDR5VPrMLeOinpEJsVm0Ew21MPAUY/edit#gid=881574675
