Kalamazoo Valley Gleaners Monthly News & Notes

Greetings friends of
Kalamazoo Valley Gleaners!

We begin by praising God for his blessing upon Kalamazoo Valley Gleaners in this new year! Over the past month we have received your generous contributions of $75,000! This means we have reached the needed funds to receive a matching gift of $75,000 toward our $250,000 dehydrator.

We will place an order this week with Nyle Systems of Brewer, Maine, for the dehydrator, which will be the heart of our operation. We are praising God for this milestone event and for the generosity of our supporters.

Here’s what’s happening:

This week Van Tuinen Painting is donating their labor to spray paint the ceiling at our building. Sherwin-Williams donated 240 gallons of paint for the ceiling and for future painting projects. McAllister Manlifts donated manlifts needed for the painting.
Painting the ceiling at Kalamazoo Valley Gleaners

Painting the ceiling at Kalamazoo Valley Gleaners

We are close to having final blueprints for our building renovations. Architect Bruce Vanderweele has donated his time and expertise.

Drywall was recently donated by Gypsum Supply. As God would have it, our next-door neighbor, Kandler Tool, willingly used their forklift to unload the drywall into our building.

Dan Scheffers, Tom Brussee, Dan Hazelhof, Steve Visser, Dennis DeHaan, Ken Anderson, Jack VanderMeer, and I (Jim Van Tuinen) demolished walls and prepared surfaces for spray painting.

Thanks to everyone listed above.

Others have stepped forward in recent days to join our task forces for fundraising, volunteers, and production management.

How can you help?

Here’s how can you help:

Keep us in your prayers. Pray diligently for hearts to be moved to provide financial gifts, volunteers for our renovations, and folks for our various task forces.

Consider donations of materials and labor for our renovations.

Share the “Gleaner Gospel” with your friends. If you’re interested in contributing or hosting a presentation about Kalamazoo Valley Gleaners, contact Jim Van Tuinen at jlvantuinen@gmail.com.

One final thought. Tim Paauw of Sus Manos Gleaners texted us on Christmas Eve requesting prayers for the safe delivery of 50,000 meals to Haiti. On Christmas Day that food was delivered. We are thanking God for this Christmas miracle! Like Sus Manos, Kalamazoo Valley Gleaners strives to be a conduit of mercy in providing food to those in great need. With your generous support we will be able to share our abundance with hungry people as soon as we open our doors.

Sincerely,
Jim Van Tuinen

God continues to amaze us through his people. As of today, we're at $740,000
towards our $1.5M goal.