When you talk to Ken and Judi (Brink) Draisma ’77 about the nonprofit they started in Pullman, MI, they’re pretty nonchalant and matter-of-fact about it.
As if one starts a much beloved community nonprofit as a daily endeavor, like brushing your teeth or feeding the cat.
It was about 17 years ago back in 2008 that the Draismas started People Helping People in Pullman, Michigan, on land they owned, with very few plans for all that it would become.
“It’s a God story, really. It’s amazing how people have come alongside us,” Judi said recently. “It’s grown way beyond us now—we claim Psalm 139:5, ‘You go before me and follow me. You place your hand of blessing on me.’”
“We definitely call it a God-led vision with no personal vision,” Ken added.
The Draismas never imagined at the start that People Helping People (PHP) would soon become a nonprofit running on about $900,000 a year, serving just under 700 area families, with 21,000 meals, and 90-100 kids after school and throughout the summer. The rural underserved town of Pullman claims about 3,000 people, with an average poverty rate of about 31.8% (Census Reporter, 2022); it makes sense that many of the Pullman residents served by PHP struggle with various addictions, unemployment, food security, and a lack of utilities like electricity or heat.
How is it that one ends up creating a community nonprofit to serve a town that you don’t even live in?
Let’s back up just a bit.
Ken and Judi met midway through their senior year at Holland Christian High School, connecting through mutual friends. After graduation, Judi attended Calvin College briefly before graduating with her medical secretary science degree from Davenport University.
And Ken went straight into farming, having worked for a farmer in high school, and really enjoying it. Due to both the commodities and the livestock shipped in and out of the farm, Ken eventually started a trucking company, Pro Vision Transport. Today Pro Vision Transport Inc services many local businesses and three out of their four children manage the current business.
But back to People Helping People: Always an entrepreneur, one day in 2005 Ken drove down to Pullman for a real estate auction with his eye on several parcels of land in the area that included a registered sand pit.
“I was purchasing a parcel of land with a sand pit and an office, but with no big agenda or vision,” he said. “And it kinda turned into seeing the community down there, the poverty. We were hearing that some ministries wanted to get into the community…”
The couple decided to throw a community summer picnic (as one does?!) with games on the lawn and a pig roast in order to get to know the community, to “establish a presence,” Ken said. “And it grew from there.”
At that first picnic—the first of many over the years—the Draismas handed out a survey to the people who came. The survey responses revealed a common theme of no hope. So People Helping People started trying to bring hope, with a very humble beginning: home repairs, heating assistance, a listening ear, help navigating government assistance programs—while also working to establish relationships and trust in the community.
The Draismas quickly utilized the sand pit with the trucks, but did not have a specific vision for the office building on 56th St. which was on the main drag through Pullman. After recognizing the poverty in the area, and having previously supported the work of Love INC, the Draismas extended an invite for Love INC to establish a presence in the poverty pocket.
They wanted to respond with a listening ear to the poverty they saw around them—to the difficulties of no transportation, no internet, rental houses with dirt floors and leaking roofs—bringing in Holland area community groups to help with home repairs, a night of worship, and hot meals. Surrounding churches got involved and invested, making warm coats available in the fall, backpacks stocked with school supplies for kids going back to school, food handouts, Christmas gifts, and a place to meet friends from in and out of the community. Pullman—a community with no hope—now had a beacon of caring people and a local staff available to help.
“It was a faith-based organization right from the start,” Judi said. “A faith-based effort that turned into a 501C3 organization. So many willing hearts, generous supporters, caring and kind Christ followers support People Helping People.”
With their oldest three children already graduated from Holland Christian, their youngest a junior, Ken and Judi saw the need for an after school program, and decided to add that piece into PHP as well. Today about 90 kids get off the bus at PHP, down a snack, do homework with available adult help if needed, and then enjoy free time in the gym or outside with adult mentors until their parents can pick them up at 5:30-6pm after work.
Over time, Thursday nights have become Christ-centered evenings, with free dinner and a Bible lesson for any one who shows up. Usually 80-100 people will show up for dinner—families, adults, kids, and then after eating dinner together separate into “kind of like Sunday School groups, where volunteers give Bible lessons and love on them,” Judi said.
“The community has gained trust and appreciates who we are,” Ken said.
In 2016 they started dreaming of building their own building to house PHP; in 2018 they hired a full time executive director, Jeff Kruithof ’91, who has his own God story of trying to leave the nonprofit sector, but feeling called back into it through PHP. Much of the nonprofit program operated out of the semi-run down church nearby and eventually on the property, which with the help largely from Ridge Point Church in Holland they were able to renovate.
Two years ago they finally finished a whole new building, complete with room for a community food pantry, some showers, and a small laundromat.
“We had a grand opening in the community, made our presence there known, and have had a lot of growth since then,” Judi said.
Ken and Judi no longer run PHP, but Ken remains on the board as vice president, along with his son-in-law, Daris DeGroot, and seven others. They periodically go out for church on Sundays, mow the lawn frequently, and help out with any needed maintenance around the place.
“It’s the ‘Sand Pit Story,’” Ken said. “That sand from the sand pit is under each one of those buildings. God’s plan is not our plan—it’s just how it unfolded. We had some excavating equipment, our sons were involved in the building, our kids go volunteer, and our grandchildren have the opportunity to volunteer alongside us. That’s a big deal for us.
Besides being grateful for the churches and people who support PHP to keep it running, the Draismas are “always challenging the community themselves—that if you’ve been helped, pass it on,” Ken said. “Relationship is a big part of what we’re doing down there—it’s not just handouts and showers. We’re trying to show that hope, that love. It’s been pivotal in the community.”
Judi likes to quote Deuteronomy 31:8 as a testimony to God’s work in Pullman and the Draisma’s progression with the community there: “‘The Lord is the one who goes ahead of you, He will be with you, He will not fail you or forsake you. Do not be afraid, or be dismayed.’”
“If I were to speak at an HC chapel, I would tell those kids to be bold with their faith and what they’ve learned at HC,” Ken added. “God uses everybody with different skill sets. They don’t have to go to the other side of the world or a different country—just a half hour south of us is a community that needs basics for life and needs to know who Jesus is.”
“They don’t have to go to the other side of the world or a different country—just a half hour south of us is a community that needs basics for life and needs to know who Jesus is.”
