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

August 17, 2020

Hello Everyone –

This week resumed regular hours in our retail stores and we are planning to see an uptick in sales due to the more than 300 hours a week we will be adding. As long as we can keep product on the shelves, this can help our bottom line significantly. We are still in need of additional staff at some of our retail locations. If you know anyone with a great work ethic who wants to work for an employer like Goodwill to be part of making a difference in our communities, please make the referral! We would love to meet your friends and would welcome them into our Goodwill family.

We have a new partnership with Consumers Energy that will begin soon. We will be selling LED lightbulbs in our stores, starting with 700 bulbs per store! Consumers is interested in getting these bulbs out into the community and our retail stores are a perfect way to make it happen. They will be offered at a very good price point.

Workforce Development has some positive news to report as well.  Recently we were awarded the Region 4 Offender Success program’s Resource Navigator contract for Muskegon County. This is a renewal of the work for us, and our continued success is in large part because of the great work done by Sharlisa, our Resource Navigator, during the last five months. The Holland Employment and Training Center (ETC) is up and running within the North Holland store, and this past week the ETC secured a new enclave with Pangea! Enclave work has also resumed with Dutch Treat Foods – great news in our effort to increase competitive and integrated employment opportunities for our clients. We also began promoting our new five-week program to assist special education students to define goals beyond high school with a presentation to the Muskegon Area Intermediate School District.

This past week, Industrial Services achieved recertification for ISO with zero findings and zero non-conformances! Achievement at this level is extremely difficult, and I commend Chad, Amy, and their team for this achievement, as well as Ron for his leadership in the process. In addition, phase II in bringing clients back to the Muskegon IS work center is complete, and we now have 10-12 clients working every day.

MIOSHA recently launched unannounced inspections at retail establishments to ensure executive order mandates are being followed. The goal is to reduce the risk of COVID-19 spread, and if major deficiencies are found, penalties of up to $7,000 may be issued. This month our South Holland retail location was inspected without warning and there were no findings! The inspector was “pleasantly surprised” as he did not expect such a small and remote store to have so many good systems implemented. Congratulations to Les and his team, and to HR and the safety committee for their work in making sure we have great safety plans that are implemented in all of our locations.

Reopening is such good news, but our financial position continues to be significantly stressed as we are spending much more than we are earning. This is not something we can continue indefinitely, and as the pandemic is likely to stretch deep into 2021, we must address the discrepancy quickly. As mentioned above, we are taking action to increase revenue in retail, but we must also contain costs. Please do everything in your power to assist in this effort.

I am grateful for all of you, so as always – wear your masks correctly, maintain distancing, wash your hands, and be kind to one another –

Jeanette