By: Kalie Date: 07/30/2015
2015 marks 30 years of outreach for Alpha Women’s Center of Grand Rapids (AWC). As we celebrate this milestone, we are taking time to look back and reflect on how much we have grown over the last three decades.
We began at Cherry Street in 1985, moved to Michigan Street, and transitioned to a 4,000 square-foot building on Fulton Street for several years. Each building worked well for a time, but AWC kept growing and growing! Finally, in 2010, AWC purchased our current facility on South Division.
This 17,000 square-foot facility is where AWC has truly found room to thrive. Mentoring rooms, classrooms, an ultrasound room, staff offices, storage space, and even a hair salon fill this beautiful building, making tours an amazing experience for first-time visitors… as long as they don’t get lost!
The size of our building allows AWC to continue expanding our programs and reaching an ever-increasing number of clients. In our first year of operation, AWC met with 71 women. Throughout the years this number has grown, and today we see over 1,100 women a year.
Clients can engage in a variety of programs, many of which have evolved over time. For instance, our Step Up Mentoring Program is tailored around the needs of each client, offering support and educational information as well as a relationship with a mentor. Our Wnglish as a Second Language Class, which began in 2012 with six women, has nearly quadrupled to 23 women. In the spring of 2015, we launched a Single Moms Support Group to provide an atmosphere where women can share their experiences with other single moms.
Our volunteer numbers have also grown in the last 30 years. In 2014, we had 399 volunteers serve at AWC—100 of whom came on a regular basis to mentor, tutor, sort inventory and help in administration. Without their involvement, we simply could not exist! Visit our Stories page to read personal experiences from our volunteers and clients.
2014 was an amazing year of growth for AWC. Five staff members were hired, including Colleen Geisel as our new Executive Director. With diverse backgrounds, experiences, and gifts, our staff of 10 is committed to constantly improving every area of AWC. Over the last year there have been many examples of this. For instance, our two biggest events of the year (Annual Banquet and Walk for Life) were some of the most successful events in AWC history. Also, AWC also partnered with a professional consulting company to create a brand new volunteer training program. Finally, we just launched an innovative website, which is already reaching more clients and supporters.
That brings us to you!
Thank you for taking the time to read this post. Whether you have been a faithful supporter of AWC for years or you just stumbled across this blog by accident, we’re glad you’re here. Hopefully you just learned something new about AWC, and maybe this has inspired you to make an appointment, sign up for a class, come in for a tour or use your talents to volunteer with us.
Whatever your next step might be, just know that we truly enjoy the work that we get to do here in Grand Rapids and we can’t wait to see what next year brings. Thanks for being part of it!
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