What We Do
Innovative Recovery FOR MEN
Guiding Light’s four-month residential experience creates a dynamic culture of community, peer support, and accountability.
This faith-based long-term rehab provides a structured environment, dedicated staff, and comprehensive programming which includes evidence-based practices, life-coaching, spiritual direction, therapy, support groups, psycho-social education, and exercise. We want men to WAKE UP to the life God has given them, where they are free, sober, connected to God, hard at work, and restored to family.
This is recovery re-imagined. And it starts with something as simple as a commitment to make their bed each morning.
recovery Designed For Women
It’s here! Uniquely designed for women, Guiding Light now offers long-term women’s recovery program! Aligning with the structure and principles of our successful men’s recovery program, our women’s program provides a carefully crafted recovery process. We offer a beautiful home for women to live in while they attend day-programming at a location on Aquinas College’s campus, along with the care, support, relationship, and intensity Guiding Light is known for.
We are so thankful such comprehensive and transformative programming can be offered at NO COST to the participant! No insurance, no time limit, our generous donors make this possible for women seeking a new way to live: sober, free, and in community.
Ruth’s House and Esther’s House, named after two long-time dedicated volunteers, are in place for long-term sober living for women after they complete our 4-6 month program. This is safe, dignified, and supportive sober living. We are excited to walk alongside women as they live a new life of recovery, rooted in community, awake to the gifts that God gives each of us.
Long-Term Sober Living
Iron House is a community of renovated 2-bedroom apartments in Kentwood where residents are working full-time, paying a modest rent, participating in support groups, community meetings, and helping out with yard work and property maintenance. On average, men live at Iron House for a little over a year and many stay for 2-3 years as they build a new life.
We see significant wage increases, promotions, debt resolution, family restoration, and degree completion here.
Iron House serves a dual purpose as long-term affordable housing as the final piece of programming, and as a social enterprise where the men’s rent re-invests in Guiding Light’s programs. After completing our rigorous 4-6 month program at our downtown location, participants are eligible to move to Iron House after finding work, saving money, and stepping up in service and community.
Food. Hosptality. Support Groups.
Guiding Light is invested in being a good neighbor. We share significant amounts of food and food supplies to help address hunger and food insecurity in our community with neighboring organizations serving women and children. We provide winter clothes to community members during the cold months and offer a warming center when temperatures become extreme.
Hot, sit-down holiday meals are offered to our Heartside neighbors at Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter. Three times a week, Guiding Light opens its doors for support group meetings (such as Alcoholics Anonymous) – of course offering coffee and cookies! These are well-attended groups, and all are welcome!
Service. Outreach. Engagement
A point of distinction around our faith-based recovery program is the emphasis we place on SERVICE. Active recovery requires stepping outside of ourselves and into care and service to others.
While men and women in programming are able to receive top-notch resources and opportunities at no cost to them, they also learn the value of being good citizens of our collective community. Neighborhood clean-up, church volunteering, community gardening, or basic grunt work, our guys and gals show up ready and willing to give back!
Part of healing and becoming whole again is the process of learning to give back, and we see this in action each day.
Deep, not wide.
While we know a warm meal, a clean bed, and a hot shower are basic necessities, our focus goes beyond simply immediate relief of dire circumstances. Change to avoid pain can often be short-lived.
We want men and women to dig deep, moving beyond willpower, and engage in transformation of mind, body, and spirit. We want men and women to WAKE UP to the possibilities of their lives, to see the gifts God has given them, and to live life in a completely different way.
The video below is from our Year Sobriety Celebration, where men share a testimony of how their life is different a full year later. This is long-term and is recovery reimagined.
Looking back on this gift of time, space, and rigorous programming from our amazing donors, one client reflects,
“It’s been very humbling to realize people can be that generous. I don’t feel there’s any way I can repay them for what I’ve been given. I had nothing, and now I have everything.”
Dig into the details of our recovery program:
See the impact donors like you have in the lives of men and women:
