GRAND RAPIDS, Mich — 2020 was always slated to be a "big" year for the Salvation Army Ray & Joan Kroc Center, located in Grand Rapids. This fall, it will celebrate 10 years in West Michigan. But the milestone year has been marked by unpredictable and unprecedented challenges in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"I mean this place was built for the community and in the last 10 years, hundreds of thousands of people have come to the center to work on their overall well-being, whether it is physical, the mental or the spiritual. Sadly now, we've been closed for almost 6 months," says Captain Bill Brutto, the Chief Kroc Officer.
Brutto says they have used that time wisely by cleaning the facility and creating new protocols to protect staff and the public.
"Well, it's pretty empty in here of course, but it is also extremely clean. We've changed everything from when they first walk in. They will now have to sign on through a tablet and they will also be met by greeters, which usually is not the case. There they will do temperature checks and then do a kind of health questionnaire. During this last 6 months we've done everything from changing out some of our software systems to then also making sure that there's hand sanitizer everywhere. We spread out all our workout machines so that they're now 6 feet apart. We emptied our pool, cleaned our pool and rebuilt the pool. And so, I really feel like this whole facility is extremely clean and safe for people to come back," says Brutto.
He may be anxious for the doors to open to the public, but he is even more eager to, hopefully, bringing back Kroc employees that have been impacted by the pandemic.
"I mean it's really sad. More than anything else we are missing 200 of our employees right now. We've had to furlough 200 employees, which was not easy. We realized that impacts a lot of families and we're praying for those individuals daily. We want our employees to come back. We've continued to have managers check in with their employees," said Brutto. "We only have 19 employees left on payroll and those are really the heads of the different departments. They are multitasking and doing several jobs just to keep the basic operations afloat."
Despite being down employees and unable to engage the community in person, Brutto says they are taking advantage of every opportunity to serve the community in impactful ways.
"We did start live church up again outside, in June. So that's been exciting. We're almost six weeks into that now and that's good to bring some people back. Of course, not all of our people have come back so we still do our services online on our Grand Rapids Kroc Church page," he says.
The Kroc has also offered roughly 850 hours of virtual classes to the community. And, in June, live-streamed a prayer vigil focused on racial reconciliation after the murder of George Floyd.
"It starts with myself and it starts with our staff, but we need to continue to build a safe community, a community of equality and work for equal opportunities for our community and for our staff," says Brutto. "The one thing I'm most proud of is that the Salvation Army and the Kroc Center is more than just a building. Just because our buildings are closed doesn't mean that we aren't continuing to support our community. It doesn't mean that we've stopped making a difference for our community."
Since 2010 the Kroc Center has offered senior and youth programs, faith-based activities, a place for members to become physically fit and much more. During the first two months of the pandemic the Kroc Center provided sack lunches to 3,624 local children; provided boxes of groceries to nearly 400 families, supplied toys and activities to children stuck at home and made more than 3,400 phone calls offering spiritual and emotional support to members.
"Normally we have well over 1,000 people in our building each day," says Brutto. "We just hope that people realize we are going to great lengths to make our center and our ministry is as safe as possible and that we do want people to come back. We really miss our people."
He says the Kroc Center could be ready to open tomorrow, but he understands the best thing for the community is to wait until COVID-19 numbers continue to drop significantly.
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"My grand hope is that people do come back, and they do realize that we are a safe place. That we can continue to be a place where young people can come and families can continue to use our facility and have time to just be together, play together and get healthy. That's my grand hope," says Brutto.
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