Arlene DeYoung is on Great Lakes Urban’s board of directors. She brings 20 years of experience in the corporate arena at Amway and Meijer where she has gained valuable leadership, task-oriented, and relationship skills.

In her day job, Arlene is the executive director of Urban Family Ministries—an organization that strengthens families and changes lives by sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ within the urban core of Grand Rapids and through relational, spiritual, and economic empowerment. We sat down with Arlene to hear more about her story and what brought her to GLU.

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
I have lived in Michigan for the past 25 years. My husband and I have three kids and, even though we are rooted in Michigan, we like to travel to different states and countries so that our kids are exposed to different places and cultures. Community is important to our family. We volunteer with schools, churches, and community organizations. We also love to go on hikes and hangout at parks.

​What’s your favorite thing about living in West Michigan?
Lake Michigan. Being out on the water almost feels like you’re in California or someplace else. I went to college at Hope in Holland and it’s fun to see how much downtown Holland has evolved. It’s great to walk around the shops and restaurants.

Tell us about your career and how you got involved at Great Lakes Urban.
​I’ve been on the board at Great Lakes Urban for about a year and a half now and my role is focused on marketing support. I am also an executive director at a nonprofit in Grand Rapids called Urban Family Ministries. Formerly, I was in the corporate world, working for organizations like Meijer and Amway. That was a majority of my career and now I’ve switched gears into the ministry and nonprofit world. It has been an amazing learning experience.

Can you talk more about your role at Great Lakes Urban?
My main role is focused on the marketing and strategic thinking, and I attend board meetings once a month. From those meetings, there are specific needs and tasks that I step in and get involved with. Recently, we had a fundraiser, and I was on the committee to help coordinate the logistics and review some of the marketing materials for that. Another thing I’ve been working on is building a partnership with a local church. Those are just some examples of my role. As a board member, I am really looking to support Eric and GLU in the best way possible.

Since I’m new, I’ve also been spending some time doing trainings and getting to know everyone involved. I did an ABCD (asset-based community development) training this year and I’ve also been attending some of the Lunch and Learns to learn who all of the wonderful people are that are committed to community connecting.

How did you get involved in this work and with GLU?
Prior to getting this job, I was searching for a new career, and I was really stepping back and thinking about what I wanted to be doing. This opened me up into the nonprofit world and I found the opening at Great Lakes Urban and was inspired by the work that they do and how they empower the community to make change in simple ways. From there, I got connected to Ken and became a board member.

What is something you admire about GLU’s efforts?
I love to hear the stories of the community and how, every time there’s a need or an event, everyone wants to be engaged. We facilitate and help create events, but it’s great to see how successful that they are because of the community.

I was also impressed by the success of one of our recent fundraisers. We had an initial goal of $8,000 and we ended up raising more than $20,000! That really came from people hearing and connecting with the story of Great Lakes Urban and realizing its impact. It’s awesome to see people inspired to donate and support the cause because they believe in it.

Why should people support Great Lakes Urban?
I would say that people should donate to Great Lakes Urban because you’re helping make a change in the community. These donations help empower and build on the work of the connectors and support the people that want to make change but are lacking resources. These people are doing a lot of hard work and it’s a part-time job that they should be paid for. And they really are trying to do big things with little resources. But those $10, $20, $30 donations per month can go a long way.

What is something that every neighborhood could benefit from having?
Well, I think it’s one thing that Great Lakes Urban offers, which is a voice. Having a community spokesperson and hearing them out, supporting them, and taking action is what GLU supports. We have seen the power of connecting people, sharing stories, and representing the voices of the community. And it’s important to have those voices represented accurately by people who live in the community and are in regular connection with their neighbors.

What do you hope to see in Great Lakes Urban’s future?
I hope to see us gain a strong momentum and see growth in communities in West Michigan and then duplicate this success is communities across the nation. Great Lakes Urban’s plan is to be national, and I’d love to see that happen.
It would also be great if we could connect to the younger generations and the people that are living in the communities that aren’t yet apart of this work. Building more awareness is important, because I feel that once people know about us, they’d definitely be willing to get involved.

What would you like people to know about this work?
That anybody can do it. Everyone can play a role: there’s hands-on work, hands-off work, prayer, literally getting “in the weeds” of a community garden, or whatever it may be. It’s also vital to provide feedback and share what your needs and wants in the community are so that you can find the support to make those changes happen. Great Lakes Urban is all about providing that support and giving you the tools and resources needed to start having an impact.

​How did you get involved in the Holland community after moving?
​Shortly after moving I joined a life skills program that allowed me to ease back into working. I was working in a thrift store, and I loved what I was doing. I graduated the program and was working at McDonalds when a couple came in one day and told me about an organization called Circles USA, an organization that helps people in poverty to prosper. I got involved as a leader and this program inspired me to stay accountable for the goals I had while connecting me to others who also wanted to stay on track with their goals.

Through my involvement with Circles USA, I was able to form concrete relationships with people in the community which have been really impactful on my life. I’m now involved with the organization Westcore Neighbors as a block connector and my job is to be available for members of this block and help them find solutions for problems that arise. I also have the privilege to develop block parties and ultimately try to get people to come out of their shell and become neighbors.

How has being involved in the community impacted your life?
When I first moved to Holland, I was really broken emotionally, spiritually, and physically. Through graduating from the Life Skills program at Holland Rescue Mission and the Circles USA program, being involved with the Optimist Club, and volunteering to feed the community with Maple Avenue Reformed Church, my life transformed. These services gave a lot to me and then I ended up giving back to them as well.

I also have major depressive disorder and, after moving here, I got affiliated with community mental health services and they found a medicine that works well for me. Through my involvement with different community services and organizations, I was able to become a productive member of this community. They also helped me to prosper through the knowledge and camaraderie I received from the services that I had the privilege to take part in.

How did you get involved with Westcore neighbors? And what does that involvement look like?
​My friend Jay Van Groningen told me about the organization, and I started going to their monthly meetings and joined in. I believe it was through the grace of God that I got the privilege to help. We have done different work and events such as Dumpster Day, which happens once a year when the city brings dumpsters to the church property, and everybody can get rid of what they don’t need anymore. Habitat for Humanity also comes to take things that still have some life in them. Ultimately, our purpose at Westcore Neighbors is to bring people out to get to know one another through different projects to create togetherness.

Are there any other community events that stand out to you?
Every year we have West Fest, and it is a great time for the residents to get outside and meet each other. Anyone who wants to participate can set up something on their property and they can have games or food or whatever they want. We have a map that shows each house that is participating and then neighbors can go walk around the blocks and get to know each other. Neighbors that have never even seen each other get to meet and connect for the first time. I dream of seeing even more of this in the future.

Can you talk about the relationships you have formed in this community?
My friendship with Jay has been really important. He has helped me to prosper in life in so many ways. He’s the one that pushed to me get to know others in the area by saying, “Paul, be a neighbor. Go knock on the door and introduce yourself and say hi.” So, I did, and now I have a great friendship with my next-door neighbor, and they have become just like family.

How does having a stronger sense of community improve your life?
I know I’m not alone. Growing up, I came from a family that wasn’t very sociable and didn’t have any community or relationships with extended family. When I got to Holland, I started developing significant and loving relationships with people that I had never had before. I’ve planted roots and found myself at home.

If someone was struggling to connect to their neighbors and community, what advice would you give them?
I would tell them my story and how I most times, when I reached out of my comfort zone, I found myself welcomed into a new group of people. Fear is just you imagining that something bad is going to happen, when in fact, it isn’t. I have relationships with all different people in the community of all ages and from all different cultures and background and it has enriched my life. I hope my story inspires them to say, “Hey, you know what, I am afraid of living in fear. Let me give this a try.”

​While it’s nice to see how these gardens and spaces improve the appearance of the area, 

these projects are so much more than that. Lori emphasizes that, “It’s really about humanity and just being out with each other. Everybody gets together and has so much fun. Because of this work, we now know our neighbors and if we are ever in a jam, night or day, we know that our neighbors are going to have our back.”

For Eastcore, Lori is grateful that the State of Michigan was willing to provide funding and she hopes that they continue to support similar initiatives. A lot of community businesses also supported these projects including Andy Mast Greenhouse, Jonker’s Garden, Robin’s Flower Gardens, Heinz, and Permaloc, who heard about the projects and wanted to contribute. 

Lori sees a variety of added interests coming from the local residents on all of these ongoing projects, which they will continue to work together on in the years to come. She says, “People need to have that sense of community and purpose, and when they get together, they can do amazing things. With this work, you always have to think positive and remember that everything you are doing is for the long haul and it won’t happen overnight. It takes a lot of patience and love, but it is incredibly worth it.” 

Our Lunch+Learns are designed to share stories and insights about the power of community connecting through asset-based community development.

On June 2nd, 2021, over lunch, we gathered with national leaders from Richmond Virginia, Mercede, California, and Memphis, Tennessee to learn about how listening and building connections strengthens neighborhoods and transforms lives.

Great Lakes Urban directly supports such efforts in the cities of West Michigan. You can find our previous Lunch+Learn—which focused on the local story of Holland—in another post below.

But Great Lakes Urban also wants to use what we’ve learned doing this work since 2008 to help catalyze a national movement, a pandemic of connectedness, belonging, and collective self-efficacy that sparks change in the places where we live, work and play.

As part of that, we have joined with eight other founding organizations from across the country to launch and grow a Network for Social Transformation. What binds us together is a commitment to relationally-driven, ground-up, asset-based, and place-centered neighborhood and community transformation.

For this quarter's virtual Lunch+Learn, we visited with the luminary founders and directors of three of those organizations—Kaleidoscope Collaborative RVA, Amy Moritz Consulting, and Lifeline CDC—to share from their significant experience generating just and lasting change.

If you missed it, you can still listen in by clicking here.

​Our esteemed guests included:

The Godfrey Lee neighborhood of Wyoming, Michigan is stronger today because of the Godfrey Lee Listeners (GLL). GLL is the formal name of a resident-led neighborhood team that has formed to own and support the listening and connecting work in the neighborhood. Now, we are celebrating with GLL that they just received their 501(C)3 nonprofit status!

GLU Board announces the appointment of a new Executive Director.

​An interview with Maddie Roberts, GLU's West of Washington Neighborhood Connector.

​Van Groningen adds 30 years of community development experience as he joins GLU Board.

​Lisa Caston and volunteers of Washington School Neighbors are making a difference.