As an employer, your choice of The Job Post for your staffing agency goes much farther than saving you time, stress, and production costs. It also results in a positive impact on the Grand Rapids community. You may have read that we’re different from other staffing agencies. This is one of the reasons why we are so different.
In order to truly understand this, it’s important to get an overview of Guiding Light, the organization that founded us as its own social enterprise.
Integrated Programs to Help the Homeless and Addicted
Originally established in 1929 to serve food and provide services to help the homeless, the Guiding Light has expanded its original mission. Rather than simply “provide” meals for the homeless — a one-way program that continues to this day — Guiding Light’s directors saw the need to go beyond that. They wanted to help the homeless achieve a better life.
After some very hard work, generous donations, and unyielding faith, Guiding Light’s integrated programs now help men in Grand Rapids that are on the street to go back to work and get back to life. They restore self-worth, faith, and the ability to contribute. Some of the ways Guiding Light does this are not only unique, but they work:
Recovery Program:
An intensive, four-to-six month drug and alcohol treatment program designed to give men structure and the opportunity to engage in change. This residential program combines evidence-based practices, life-coaching, therapy, support groups, spiritual direction, and resources to equip men to stay sober and live life in a new way.
Iron House:
Iron House is the name of Guiding Light’s sober-living apartment dwellings – three buildings in a safe, family-oriented neighborhood in Kentwood, and one building closer to downtown Grand Rapids. Exclusively for the men who have gone through Guiding Light’s Recovery program, residents have jobs, buy their own food, pay their own bills, and engage with each other for support.
The Job Post:
This is us! Guiding Light’s very own social enterprise that serves the staffing needs of local businesses and the men and women who come in looking for work. Anyone can apply, provided they have a valid I.D. and can pass a drug test. In addition to drawing from Guiding Light program participants, The Job Post offers its staffing agency services to employers looking for the right employees, and to the general public — any individual looking for work.
Guiding Light Connection Provides A Full Circle of Sustainability
As a social enterprise of Guiding Light, proceeds earned through The Job Post’s business activities go directly back to supporting the Guiding Light’s programs:
The once one-way programs that survived solely on donations now have supplemental income streams — from employers that use The Job Post’s services, and from those impacted by the Guiding Light’s programs when they give back to Guiding Light.
Powerful Community Impact
Guiding Light keeps running totals of its powerful impacts on the community. These include:
meals have been shared (YTD)
men currently in their recovery programming (monthly average)
at Iron House who achieved one year of sobriety (semi-annual %)
gained full-time employment (rolling YTD)
annualized economic impact (rolling 12-month YTD)
