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Mel Trotter Ministries Announces $14.9 M Capital Campaign

Pic of Mel Trotter logo
Mel Trotter

Earlier today, Mel Trotter Ministries announced the Immeasurably More campaign, a $14.9 million fundraising campaign to fund the construction of a renovated Men’s shelter among other improvements.  It has been 54 years since any kind of significant renovation has occurred. 

Mel Trotter Ministries serves over 3,000 homeless guests each year—providing housing, meals, recovery programs, job training, spiritual counseling and more.  But their shelter needs a makeover and other programs could use a boost.  The “Immeasurably More” campaign was launched in 2019. It has raised more than 9.8 million over the last year through more than 240 community donors.  Today is the kickoff of the public phase of the campaign.  The final push to raise the additional five million dollars.  Dennis Van Kampen, is the President and CEO of Mel Trotter Ministries.

“The pandemic kind of derailed the campaign. But it didn’t deter us. We are so excited today to announce the public portion of the campaign; we’re seeking to raise $15 m to really help move the needle on homelessness in our community.”

Over the last two years, Mel Trotter has merged with Heartside Ministries and Next Step of West Michigan to expand their services to the homeless in the region.  Van Kampen says the campaign has four pillars… the first is the men’s shelter.

“We have a shelter where for the men, that nothing has been done in 54 years. And we want to create an environment that is welcoming, that provides dignity and value.”

Van Kampen says the other pillars include workforce development, case management and diversion (helping people from becoming homeless) and perhaps the biggest, housing.

“Housing is a crisis, here and around the country.  Mel Trotter already has some houses that we own around the area and this would significantly increase the housing that is available.”

Van Kampen says their board has approved phase one of construction, set to being in July.  Their hoping the campaign will be fulfilled by this fall and they’re looking for completion of all projects by the end of 2022. 

If you’d like to partner with them or learn more, you can go to meltrotter.org/immeasurablymore   

Jennifer is an award winning broadcast news journalist with more than two decades of professional television news experience including the nation's fifth largest news market. She's worked as both news reporter and news anchor for television and radio in markets from Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo all the way to San Francisco, California.