Helping people prepare for, find, and keep good jobs is what Goodwill is about.

Hello Everyone –
It is a pleasure for me to share with you a bit of news from Goodwill:
• Industrial Services and Workforce Development are ramping up for the start of our Ignite program. We begin January 25, and if you know anyone who has simply encountered the criminal justice system and is a Muskegon County resident who would benefit from job preparation and training, refer them to Ignite! Call Dina at (231) 722-7871, ext. 1074.
• We are selling a portion of our abundance of donations (unsorted hard lines) to the Goodwill of Northern Michigan (Traverse City). The first shipment went out last week giving us partial relief from our storage crunch.
• Our Outlet and salvage sales across the board are strong.
• Our first GoodWorks participant in Workforce Development has been enrolled and the program has officially launched!
• Dani Bunda has been promoted to assistant manager in E-commerce where they are keeping pace with budget. We say goodbye to Casie and wish the best.
• VITA season has begun. We will be very busy this year with reduced in-person services, but our team is saving Fridays for our staff! We also welcome our new Americore member, Mikayla.
• Our Roosevelt Park store’s floors will be refinished in early February, while the store will remain open.
• The partnership between our North Holland store and Workforce Development has strengthened, providing retail skills training and experience for our program participants.
• GoodTemps is finishing the RFP for Muskegon County and has a new account with Muskegon Charter Township.
• LED lighting has been installed at the corporate office and we will begin to see a return on our investment after only four months.
• Electronics recycling is busy sorting product from new partners like Ottawa County and Lighthouse Insurance Group.
• Business is expanding for Janitorial Services with a new contract with Ottawa County.
• All of retail continues to increase their ability to drive their businesses through the use of data and so far this month are surpassing budget.

In addition, you are all doing a wonderful job of keeping yourselves and each other safe and healthy. Congratulations on keeping COVID infections almost nonexistent! The honoring last night at the Lincoln Memorial of the more than 400,000 Americans who have died from the pandemic was a powerful reminder of what is at stake as we work tirelessly to control infections.
And as I write you this note, we now have the first woman vice president in the history of our nation. Not only is she the first female, but also the first Black American and first Asian-American to serve in that role. By any measure, and specifically through the lens of diversity, equity, and inclusion, it is a joyful moment. If you have a chance, I also recommend to you Amanda Gorman, the first National Youth Poet Laureate, who performed her poem “The Hill We Climb” today at the inauguration. She captured today’s moment in time perfectly.
My best -

Jeanette