Eric Piehl comments on West Michigan in and around Kent County and Grand Rapids

Visiting Grand Rapids, Michigan?

If you are only here for a day or two, please see:

• 🏛 Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park
  
• 🏛 Gerald Ford Museum
• Events! 👥︎📅︎ Local events > EVENTS.

Enjoy!  Or keep reading for more ideas …

Looking for things to do?

🏛 Museums 👥︎📅︎ GR Community Calendar 👥︎📅︎ Local events > EVENTS, 🚼︎📅︎ GRKids > CALENDAR,   ArtPrize (approx. Sept. 2nd-Thur. to Oct. 1st-, 2nd- or 3rd-Sun. — please ☑ 📅︎ verify dates).

☀︎🚶︎🏠︎ Outdoors 🚶︎ Outings ☀︎🚶︎🏠︎ Outdoor volunteering Activists

Music and Performances Pubs

🏛 Education Lecture Series 📱︎💻︎ User Groups

Jobs Financial and other Help
Sports Local News
✈︎ Aviation

☀︎🚶︎🏠︎ Outdoors

 ▶︎  Lots of health benefits to going outdoors[?] in ☀︎ natural sunlight, direct or indirect.

To get these benefits, you might visit, see or join:

• Grand Rapids Hiking Group
• Kent County Parks (38 of them) (♿ accessible trails) (🚶︎ natural-surface trails) and other 🏞 parks from my jurisdictions for hiking (☀︎ summer), cross-country skiing and snowshoeing (❄ winter).  📅︎🚼︎ 3rd Saturday in May:  Discover! Parks Event.
• Land Conservancy of West Michigan.
• State Parks in the area ( finder ), such as Hoffmaster.
• 🚶︎ North Country Trail Association NCTA ( other local chapters ) ( online 🗺 map of region around the NCT ), a sister-trail to the 🗻︎🚶︎ Appalachian Trail ACT and the 🗻︎🚶︎ Pacific Crest Trail PCT, but longer — from New York to North Dakota, via Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota.  Similar to the Trans Canada Trail TCT.
• Wish I could make better local use of this National Park Trail Guide and national 🚶︎ 🗺 trail map. 
• 🚶︎🚼︎ Hike it Baby group hikes for babies, toddlers and preschoolers, and their parents! #DiscoverTheForest 👪︎ Family articles from REI
• Ten Essentials (from USFS)   (en Español)   (🇷🇺 на русском)     Day Hiking Checklist ❄ Cold-Weather Hiking Tips ☀︎ Extreme Heat Fact Sheet   "Hazards to Outdoor Workers" by 🇺🇸 USA CDC NIOSH.
• 
  For full effect, view the video ↖ above or to left by selecting icons ⤢⤡ full­screen, and ▶︎ Play.
• Grand Haven Coast Guard Festival July-August.
• 🚲︎ Bicycle group (local) 🚲︎ another group (statewide) 🗺 maps and information (statewide) more 🗺 maps > top nav your Trails.
• Sierra Club Grand Rapids Region Facebook page 🚶︎ day hikes and programs
• For 🚼︎ kids, there is a water park around here somewhere — Michigan Adventure?
• 🏊︎ swimming pool (indoors)
  
  
• To learn more about our ☀︎🚶︎🏠︎ outdoors,
  identify your local 🌳︎ trees and shrubs,
  using an 🏛 educational web app
              I Can See Nature! Facebook page
  for I Can See Nature!
• … sustainable landscaping and gardening with native plants.

☀︎🚶︎🏠︎ Outdoor Volunteering

There are a large number of organizations needing volunteers for ☀︎🚶︎🏠︎ outdoor work (good exercise!), who are 👥︎ partners of and listed at
West Michigan Conservation Network > About > Our Partners.

I volunteer for several of them!

• Reporting invasive species
• Restoring (rewilding) the 💦︎ rapids in the ♒︎ Grand River.   Yes, we are doing that!
• Michigan Licensed 🐦︎ 🐢︎ Wildlife Rehabilitators

Music and Performances

• Grand Rapids Symphony (very good, Pops concerts picnic on grass in ☀︎ summer, indoors in ❄ winter)
• Folk music and dancing (fun!)
• Van Andel Arena
• DeVos Performance Hall
• DeVos Place
• Forest Hills Fine Arts Center > brochure.
• concert info and 👥︎📅︎ community calendar
• Blues

🏛 Education

• TEDx ideas worth spreading.  Yes, we have a TED-like experience in GR, for which you can request an invitation.
• 🏛 Grand Valley State University GVSU (good and nearby) Computing & Information Systems Dept.
• 👥︎🏛 Grand Rapids Community College GRCC (terrific and nearby)
• Grand Rapids Public Library GRPL Kent District Library KDL
• Library databases, incl. Ancestry, Gale, Hoopla, Lynda, Mondo eBooks, genealogy, government legal forms, languages, music, periodicals, and more.
• 👥︎🏛 Forest Hills Community Education
• West Michigan Genealogical Society (scroll down for genealogy classes ), and other genealogy events in WM.

📱︎💻︎ User Groups

(mostly 📱︎💻︎ < /> computer programmer-type)   These links are stale.  Many groups did not survive COVID.  Even the lists of groups are all gone.  I will rebuild after COVID recovery shakes out a bit more.

• For central and SE Michigan (Lansing, Flint, Brighton, Port Huron), Michigan Technology Network MITN
• Grand Rapids Java User's Group (GR-JUG)
• Software Grand Rapids
• IEEE West Michigan Consultant Network
• Local Toastmasters Clubs (Communication and Leadership)
• Drupal group in Grand Rapids, MI
• West Michigan LabVIEW User Group
• Grand Rapids  🐧︎ Linux Users Group
• West Michigan 🐧︎ Linux Users Group
• West Michigan .Net User Group
• West Michigan Network Technology User Group
• Grand Rapids Python Users Group
• Grand Rapids Information Systems Security Association
• Midwest Information Security and Hacker Conference GrrCON (Huh?  A hacker conference?  In Grand Rapids???  Go!  It is excellent — I learned soooo much.)
• Grand Rapids Web Development Group and its X (formerly Twitter)
• Grand Rapids Sci-Fi Fantasy Book Club

Financial and other Help

Many Michiganders need help these days:

• Filing for Unemployment.
  Unemployed worker  ▶︎  videos.
  
  
• Information or help in Michigan, free confidential help from trained staff (Michigan).  📱︎☎ 211
  
  
• Food, healthcare, housing, WIC, emergency and other relief 📱︎☎ 1-800-481-4989, where food relief comes as an 💳︎ ordinary-looking debit card (EBT card) you use at your local grocery store.
    •  More food assistance from DHS.
    •  🍲︎ 😋︎ Yummy, filling, inexpensive recipe.   Another recipe.    And another recipe. 
    •  If have a SNAP EBT card, free or cheap entry to museums of all kinds, including children, science, sculpture, and more.
  
  
• 👥︎⚕︎ Community Health and other assistance from the MI Dept. of Human Services:
    ◦  Medicaid ⚕︎ healthcare coverage
    ◦  Mental health services
    ◦  Heath needs assessment
    ◦  Services to the aging.
• 👥︎⚕︎ Community Resource Finder (nationwide)
• A very-low-cost pharmacy/​drug store/​chemist shop > scroll down.
  
  
• 🏠︎ Housing and mortgage assistance 📱︎☎ 1-866-946-7432.
  Heating assistance for seniors and low-income. 
  
  
• Kent County senior millage benefits, including rides for age 60+ for shopping, medical, and recreation.
  
  
• 📱︎☎ Affordable basic local telephone service. 
  📱︎ Very-low-cost mobile cellphone service.
• 💻︎▯ Free or low-cost computers, laptops, tablets   or ↓ below.
  
  
• Helping Hand:
    ◦  Jobs and training
    ◦  Unemployment benefits
    ◦ Healthcare
    ◦  👪︎  Family support (cash, food, phone, tax, childcare, child support, debt, seniors)
    ◦  🏠︎  Housing help
  
  
• Getting free Credit Reports, Fraud Alerts, FICO scores, credit counseling, and handling identity theft and phishing attacks.
  
  
• Report or examine electricity outages from Consumers Energy 📱︎☎ 1-800-477-5050.
  To get screenshot:
    ◦  Android:   hold buttons Power and VolumeDown for 3 seconds, until screen shrinks.
    ◦  Windows:  Start > "snip"> wait > Enter > wait > drag a square > wait > Exit > Save.
• Status of Internet from Comcast xFinity 📱︎☎ 1-800-COMCAST, troubleshooting, speed test.
• In Michigan's Kent Co, report a road issue (e.g., pothole, down tree), or see road construction.
• More local utility helps.

Local News

• Local news
• Local media, radio and 📺︎ TV
• WGVU radio and 📺︎ TV
• general Info
• concert info and 👥︎📅︎ community calendar

Neighborhoods

To learn more (including demographic information and excellent 🗺 maps) about West Michigan's neighborhoods, cities, townships and counties, please see 👥︎🛠 Community Research & Data Tools > Community Profiles > your neighborhood, city, township or county.   Can waste use lots of time with the 🗺 Interactive Map!

My neighborhood, Ada Township  ▶︎  video Space Worth Preserving.

Closest 🏫︎ school districts are (in order):

• Forest Hills ( 🗺 map   )
• Caledonia ( 🗺 map   )
• Kentwood ( 🗺 map   )
• Grand Rapids ( 🗺 map   )
• East Grand Rapids ( 🗺 map   )
• Center for Educational Performance and Information.
• Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) data.
• 🏫︎ 🗺 map School District boundary for Kent County. 

Michigan Licensed 🐦︎ 🐢︎ Wildlife Rehabilitators

Sustainable Business Practices:  The 👥︎🌐︎📈︎ Triple-Bottom Line (3BL) Ethic

Need all three:

1. 👥︎ People, or Human Capital:
     •  Treat your employees right.
     •  Treat your 👥︎ community right.
     •  A fair day's work for a fair day's pay, while plowing a portion of the gains back to the community.
   
   
2. 🌐︎ Planet, or Natural Capital:
     •  Treat the 🌐︎ planet right.
     •  Use a cradle-to-cradle approach to all materials and processes, from raw materials, to the product, to its decommissioning, to its reuse in new products.
     •  This ethic discourages use of ☠︎ toxic materials or processes.
   
   
3. 📈︎ Profit:
     •  To meet the other ethics, this ethic is about making an honest profit.
     •  As opposed to the profit-at-any-cost ethic of other business models.

To get your company certified as a Ⓑ B Corporation involves more criteria.  But companies that do that are more likely to survive difficult economies, such as the 2008 Great Recession.

Food:  Farms

• Crane Dance Farm
• Dancing Goat Creamery makes 💃🐐︎ Dancing Goat cheese and 🫧 Udderly Wonderful soap
• Ferris Coffee & Nut Company coffee, nuts, party trays, gift sets.
• 👪︎ Lubbers Family Farm.

Food:  Markets

• Artisan Food virtual farmers market order over web, food from local sustainable producers (some listed above) delivered to your 🏠︎ home or 🏢︎ business or central location!  Also gives 🏛 educational programs about food security issues.
• Green Life Market on East Fulton.

📚︎ Paper, plastics, metal, appliances, building materials and 👟︎ shoes

Reuse and ♻︎ Recycling are two of the R's of "Rethink/​Refuse/​Reject, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle/​Repurpose/​Recover":

• Habitat for Humanity of Kent County ReStore (remodeling) reuses and ♻︎ recycles appliances (working or not), cabinets, doors, electrical or electronics (working or not), furniture, hardware, housewares, 💡︎ lighting, lumber, plumbing, tile, 🛠 tools, upholstery, wallpaper, windows.  For details, hours and locations, follow the link.
• ♻︎ Recycling and disposal in Kent County ♻︎ recycles 📚︎ paper, plastics marked 1 through 7, glass, steel and aluminum.  Get your material here by curbside recycling through your municipal or private trash haulers, or County residents may drop off materials themselves.  For details, hours and locations, follow the link.
• To have 👟︎ old athletic shoes ground up and Reused > click, select country and zip.
• There are other ♻︎ recycling vendors out there.  Can you supply this text?

💡︎ Lighting and Energy

• 💡︎ My write-up on LED lighting
• Healthy Living Technology air and water purification, 💡︎ energy-efficient lighting.
• EPEAT selecting new electronics based on 🏞 environmental attributes.
• EnergyStar selecting new appliances and 🏠︎ home improvements.
• Habitat for Humanity of Kent County ReStore (remodeling) reuses and ♻︎ recycles appliances (working or not), cabinets, doors, electrical or electronics (working or not), furniture, hardware, housewares, 💡︎ lighting, lumber, plumbing, tile, 🛠 tools, upholstery, wallpaper, windows.  For details, hours and locations, follow the link.

Miscellaneous

• Body & Soul Somatic Therapy bodywork and massage therapy, gift certificates.
• 🌎︎🌏︎🌍︎ Global Infusion Fair Trade coffee, tea, chocolate, handmade gifts & clothing.
• Holistic Care Approach LLC 🫧 natural soaps, skin care, massage, acupuncture, NAET.
• Orchard Harvest all-natural eco-friendly wax candles, contemporary design.
• Schuler's Books & Music 🏞 environmentally-responsible books.
• Shaklee Products
• Wild Birds Unlimited 🐦︎ birdfeeders, seed, boxes, pond supplies, nature gifts.  Keeping squirrels away from your birdfeeders.  (page 4)

Get rid of trash and stuff

The easiest way to get rid of stuff is through our township's annual 🧹 Cleanup Day — a one-stop operation.

But if we can't wait that long, or make it that day, they say we can, anytime, use:

• Comprenew Environmental   ♻︎ Recycle.  Refurbish.  Restart.
    ◦  Reuse most electronics and small appliances:  no landfill, nonprofit, employs 20–30 at-risk individuals, handled 2 million pounds last year!
    ◦  To donate "almost anything with a 🔋︎🔌︎ battery or powercord."
    ◦  To buy quality refurbished and vintage electronics, along with some new accessories.
• Salvation Army 📱︎☎ 1-888-868-9305 reusable household items.
• Habitat for Humanity of Kent County ReStore (remodeling) reuses and ♻︎ recycles appliances (working or not), cabinets, doors, electrical or electronics (working or not), furniture, hardware, housewares, 💡︎ lighting, lumber, plumbing, tile, 🛠 tools, upholstery, wallpaper, windows.  For details, hours and locations, follow the link.
• Padnos scrap metal and appliances.
• Shred-It 📱︎☎ 1-616-984-7977   📚︎ paper document shredding.
• ♻︎ Recycling and disposal in Kent County ♻︎ general waste and yard waste.
    ◦  📧︎ household hazardous waste 📱︎☎ 1-616-632-7941.