New building provides nonprofit Never The Same with home base to plan, grow, serve, and get muddy

The nonprofit organization, Never The Same, has a new home. It’s bigger, better, cooler, and, hopefully, easy to clean.

Kyle Wood, director of operations and communication, says the facility is designed specifically for the organization, including to help with the planning of its signature fundraising event, The Grand Rapids Mud Run.

The new location is located at 2725 29th St. SE in Grand Rapids and features over 4,000 square feet of modern office space, a large warehouse, loading dock, and other amenities for staff and volunteers. The move comes after a fire left the group’s original building in ruins, causing $100,000 worth of damage, in June 2015.

Wood says the nonprofit has multiple programs and youth camps, and utilizes the Grand Rapids Mud Run as its core fundraising event, which requires months of planning to pull off. “The Grand Rapids Mud Run features over 300 volunteers working the cheering section, obstacle course, logistics, food service and sponsor support,” he says. Wood estimates the event will raise more than $45,000, with 100 percent of the proceeds benefiting Never the Same, a national youth ministry organization that was founded in West Michigan.

The Grand Rapids Mud Run is scheduled for Saturday, August 27 at 1200 60th St. in Kentwood, next to Celebration Cinemas South. The messy, muddy obstacle and challenge-based 5K run is designed to be safe and fun for the competitive athlete, fun seekers, and families. Wood says that although there are other mud runs in the state, Never The Same is the “pioneer of mud runs.”

This year, more than 1,500 participants are expected to run the course this year, filled with mud pits, a 60-foot mudslide, tunnel crawls, walls, and slippery hill climbs.

The Grand Rapids Mud Run creates new challenges and obstacles to their course every year, so no two races are ever the same. Participation varies from highly competitive challenge-based runs, group and team runs, costume-friendly fun runs, and a Kid’s Mini-Mud fun run for children ages six to twelve years old.

Never The Same is a national organization that teaches middle and high school students around the country how praying can bring positive change in a peaceful way to schools where bullying, violence, gossip and struggles exist in their respective school environments.  

To learn more about the event and the organization, check out their sites here.

Writer: John Rumery, Innovation and Jobs News Editor