you all had a chance to make some new connections it tables at this time i'd like to think redridge realty relocation response in the copy for morning middle which i was that gives you the additional time outside to make connections before and after records don't forget there's also the time after today i also want to give special thanks to our breakfast sponsor have brought from one location where we were found at the corner of church in washington and zeal in michigan today all six locations throughout michigan and indiana we've gone from roughly a hundred of ways at that time in two thousand to know over four hundred employees and we value each and every one of our team members we love providing customized solutions in the construction industry by providing material solutions design and manufacturing solutions providing labor solutions we have embraced technology and our innovative approach as allow the younger generation to feel more comfortable working in our business and it has helped us attract talent to our organization west michigan has a vibrant community with a variety of partners  together to raise the tide for all ships and we believe this is very important to attracting talent one of our core values is community and we believe in giving back and making a positive difference in the communities that we serve one recent initiative that we have launched is our transform lives initiative where we allow paid time off for employee volunteers to work in teams with approved nonprofit organizations ultimately we believe that our servant leadership will reflect to our employees as we serve one another to our team members and ultimately to our customers as we see serve with excellence and provide outstanding customer experiences science he's worked for the after discovery center center since its founding two thousand race been intimately involved with developing the nonprofit education and conservation organization as its first executive director from a young age travis was interested in wildlife conservation good morning and this very nature rich day that we are having today i no longer so if i walk around a plea that doesn't bother any of you been told i probably have some form of a d d and that's why i probably like being outside so much as well so i want you to think for a minute think about the last twenty years of your life what's changed what's evolved to kids born grandkids cellphone computers internet now i challenge you to think a little bit further think about of a hundred years what's changed what's changed in our community so as an educator i can't help but to start off a little education a lesson this community has had about four hundred percent increase in this population since about one thousand nine hundred we had less than one hundred thousand people in the allegan of a county now they're involved four hundred thousand people but more interesting than that look at this diagram that i put  and you see this big huge this is actually produced by the daily mail in u k but it's completely applicable here to our community in a lot of the places so this huge circle that you see that's actually where great grandfather  you're looking on this side this little smart circle that jack that grampa that or that georgia sun in the one nine hundred fifty he was allowed to walk a mile will play in the woods by myself and then you look up the very top is the another smaller circle where they vicky jack daughter she was allowed to go a half mile buyers out to go down to the swimming pool local swimming pool by yourself and then you'll see this little black dot right underneath vicki son ad today and he's allowed to walk to the end of the street but don't you dare cross the road so our community not that different we have a society that's changed from us all living off the land this is what you probably would expect look at the image on the right there's nothing wrong with this i'm not trying to say this is bad but that's our community today the red is the urban and developed areas where we have houses and businesses and rode the yellow was agricultural land and the green is the remaining trees and the blue is the remaining water our world is tame and again i'm not suggesting this is for the word i'm just trying to make a point that things have changed and changed pretty drastically if you look at the slides now this is a lot like what this area looked like one hundred years ago and actually the gentleman named judge alex and down in detroit area broadband are all coming to this area with a group of people and suggested that they actually set up their community here because of all the tremendous natural resources that exist that dense dense forests water connections all these rivers and streams and life so that's what began this community so when we think about it what's the next hundred years look like and we were actually had a gentleman named richard lui in the picture here is a bestselling international author here a year ago and then to holland a couple of times somebody i met about fifteen years ago he's written several books and has worked extensively in the last decade on getting the awareness of why kids are not going outside anymore and maybe the more important like families are connected to the outdoors anymore and he is he was here visiting us and i was t and around and talking and he repeatedly brought up you guys have a super nature rich community and i kept saying to myself what the heck is nature red what does that mean he kept saying it kept saying that he spoke in front of the audience of people and he said holland has a chance to be probably the most nature rich community in the united states ok fine what does that mean i don't know we kind of blow it off you move on we move on we keep thinking about it at the outdoor discovery center and a few years or a few months go by and then we start having a conversation around what what would it mean if we actually started something about being nature rich like what would this really do for us so we had a lot of conversations we asked these three questions you can see if there what is nature it what does it mean how to build  the priorities maybe we ended up deciding to bring together a group of people and we had multiple meetings different people from all different walks of community fifty some people at a time to be in the room we did a lot of strategizing a lot of people that are in this room were a part of this and one way shape or form what came out of the conversation was that maybe we should actually look at how we can label brand is stablished our community as a nature its community so as we look at that we actually define what it meant to be nature it's that it's a community that next people in the environment great sustainable and healthy vibrant places to live work and play this isn't about getting money  michigan this kind of lakes or community say the grand haven the saga talked of hudsonville area as a nature rich area an area that we could create a dashboard for and look at what are we doing to make sure that our community is the absolute best place to live work play and learn so that was what we kind of came to an agreement on as a group and we started out a road of identifying where we should address issues where we should target things where we should look at metrics and we chose education business helping the environment pretty obvious areas to work and in our community and then we started to say ok what do we already know and if you've ever heard me talk on this topic at all i get on the bandwagon and i'm going to try not to be here but there's been  volumes of research produced richard lewis whole mission of that he's out doing is based on this and it's published information there's stacks and stacks of stuff in my office why we should be connecting kids in our communities to the outdoors reasons why today the average child in the united states in the holland michigan is not exempt from this the average child in the united states spends seven and a half hours a day front of the screen and actually about twenty minutes a day outside that includes the fifteen minute recess that they're lucky to get at their school and that includes maybe walking to the bus and back on the bus to their house there are twenty minutes and when we have a population of children being raised in that environment it's pretty scary thing deficiency in children is actually skyrocketing the c d c in the american academy of pediatrics keep producing these reports to the point where now they're starting to call these things up a definite and they're actually i read a report two years ago that was published so it's probably even worse today that there are children aged ten to twelve showing up for their wellness visit at the doctor's office being diagnosed with early onset heart disease why because they are not active anymore they sit inside it's a lot easier to poke and swipe at a screen that is to do a lot of other things that you would i maybe used to do as a child think about it again what did you do when you were eight and ten years old you didn't have an i pad you didn't have a cell phone you're like me you didn't have cable t v you don't have videogames so what you do and think about what your kids do today and what is that doing to our community and even as parents what do you do today when you sit at the dinner table if you were at the ready for school breakfast last week brilliant comments from a panel superintendents talking about how the onset of these technology world which is a good thing we all have it we all need it but how that's changing the way families work and kids learn so when we think about all that we have all this compelling information that tells us that hey we should start looking at this so we look at our environment and we say well what if we were to address the environment what if we were to actually make our viral more nature rich what would be the results of that we would be able to see things like increase interest in the community in the community itself when people actually are engaged in your parks in your outdoors in your spaces in your walkways in your bypass in your heated streets they actually have a better interest in the community right and if you have a better interest in the community you're more likely to want to invest in your community this is an equity situation too because the outdoors is free don't have to pay for it doesn't matter what walk of life you come from and i'll take advantage of that equally so that's another reason and if you've got people that are simply connected to the outdoors that's an important thing because they become your embassadors to drive your community forward when we think about the environment as just specific things as a as a fixed asset for your business people think about a treat that study that they posted there the picture that's actually was produced by a group from dolly and also michigan state university's forest service and they actually said that they did this study and found that a tree over a fifty year period is worth almost two hundred thousand dollars to a community of full size tree in what it can absorb and water and storm water the pollutants it takes out of the air the shade that it provides a community we tend to not want to have to worry about picking up leaves right but think about the of the heat index that comes when you have shade that's all important things that's just a treat now think about all the other data rich assets of the community could have that the environment provides us and i will start to challenge you as your business and in your home or your value in these assets for what they provide when we look at education a subject this near and dear to my heart education has a system going right now that has disconnected itself pretty pretty significantly from the things that actually engage and provide context to students so we will look at education in general we see that across the board students that are engaged in outdoor education are out there related activities have an increase in achievement schools in new york city provided simply a study that provided the students that could look out the window windows like you see right here in see green space out of their classroom versus the same population the students that had one of those classes that you probably all sat in at least once had no windows in it the students that had windows across the board in this ten year study had twenty seven percent higher test scores and levels than the students that were in the interior wall to classrooms this is real stuff you want to see in the research i'll show it to you so having these students connected the social emotional gains that come from the brain development that comes from and again if you are at the ready for school practice and you follow some of these other organizations and sound the same information is coming out over and over again that we can't have our kids learning from a screen they need to have their hands engaged in something the outdoors our community is the greatest free context and authentic learning model that we have so why are we using it more when we look at education in general and really not schoolyards there's a lot of studies that have come out that show that eighty eighty eighty autism symptoms all alleviated minimised when you actually have kids engaged in the outdoors and i can give you some real world stories on that one that and they had them spend thirty minutes a day walking in nature thirty minutes a day walking in nature and i'm not saying go on the aisles on national park i'm saying walking outdoors all right thirty minutes a day completely remove their need to have medication there is another study that finland did on people with high stress ten minutes a day walking outside in a park or green space statistically significant decrease in their stress levels that were in them why because when you're outside of nature your body starts to release different chemical dopamine and other things that cause you to the lack reducing diaby reduce stress levels why wouldn't we all want to do that we hear and we talk and it's true that mental health and some of the issues that are plaguing our community we talk about health care costs all of you understand that i understand that it's extremely expensive to provide health care to employ why aren't we using the outdoors more are your employees and the people that you work with are you engaged in the outdoors do you get up and take a walk outside every day and my question if you say no is why not it's free it's there and if you're an employer and you're not providing that environment for your employees why not when we look at the last one business pretty obvious one of our great partners that are in jason hayworth you've all probably benefits building have created this wonderful asset in our community the one thing you cannot deny is that when you sit in there and work you have a vision of the outdoors there's a reason if you talk to decker matthew hayworth that's why they built it like this connecting people to the outdoors yes we all know we have to be in work we have to be here i have to stand here and talk today and i'm under a roof and that's fine but having a view of the outdoors so critical just one example and we see other companies in town and done this i'm not trying to say they're the only ones there's a lot of value that comes from this and when we look at businesses and why they want to be connected to the outdoors and the environment it's a big deal the texas a and m actually did a study that found that property values for business is and homes that are in a community and are adjacent or near green spaces eighty percent increase and are eighty percent of those properties have an increased property value it causes your values of your community to go up we we have reasons for that one of our astounding people in this community missed jennifer owen sitting here she even said that the natural beauty in our region is actually one of the key acts that assets that attract talent we know that happens people want to come here because the what we have so why don't we lift that up and make it a bigger part of who we are so when we look at these nature it after what makes our community really nature  we're we're really on our way to that and this is what richard lugar i think was talking about when he spoke to about us becoming more nature rich when you look at the community you see all of these wonderful places like like michigan  us rivers all of this amazing landscape that exists right here in our community including part some of our parks would be epic in most communities and they're just routine around here it's great it's wonderful thing that we have so we should be celebrating it and when we think about things like this you know mount in our streets what does that do for a community letting people get outside with the cold and days like this they can still walk and walk down our streets without having i these are major rich assets that we have but what other ones could we have what more could there be and maybe one of the best parts of this is people i threw up three pictures from three pictures of people really cool people in this community that we get to work with on the laughter people the from the former leadership west coast leadership program kayaking and canoeing with us some herman miller employees on the right up at the top that are out and sustainability team that we work with and  group in the middle because that's my team at the discovery center why would i share that picture because people want to come to this community for the value of what the community has to offer it we have forty people that work at the outdoor discovery center and i was forty people the last five years i have hired people that have come to our community because they want to live and work here i've brought people from hawaii iowa nebraska maryland from even our own state here from grand rapids flint mid winter wanting to come work in holland in telling us when we were interviewing them that this is where they wanted to live this is where they wanted to start a family so it draws people here this is a real life stories just for my organization i would assume you all can have the same kind of conversation so when you see this kind of a story and you see what's going on i want to get it right at home to you so this is a nature it story right in our community this facility that you see on the screen is actually a little box this covering preschool it's our preschool that we run at the outdoor discovery center and started in the basement of a home five years ago the preschool is designed to be nature based meaning the kids spend pretty much their entire day outside sometimes they're inside and in our weather but they're outside most of the day the whole poll focus on that is that connect these kids that are three and four years old to their environment they're having their literacy lassen and their education is they're connecting to everything any other preschool does it's five star rated by the state of michigan fully licensed by the state of michigan it's no different than any other preschool except for our classroom is the outdoors the indoor spaces the secondary space it that the primary space for us we have fifty eight kids that were enrolled first year second year we did registration fifty eight kids sign up for a two way third year we do registration fifty eight kids sign up and two hundred are waiting in line trying to get  because it operates differently yes we have results yes we have high quality but it operates differently so we built the preschool you can see now expanded it more than three times as big we now have  hundred seventy six kids that are all in the program we've had people that have moved here from the state of wyoming the state of maine we've had folks out of called us that are looking to move into the area because of jobs we have people that drive to our preschool from grand haven in south haven to bring their kids to it every day because they want to be part of that program and they view that as value and that's how they want their kids educated so it's an example i'm not suggesting that it's the only thing out there that's  people in here but it's a prime example of what education could look like if we just rethink it just a little bit so when we look at this school and i'll show you some pictures here that you see pretty traditional building i mean the outlook school sit in a nature landscape but if you look at the outside of it you'll see that the entire area around it all the landscaping that's actually the playground that the kids play on and you will not see a single piece of playground equipment you'll see that it's all made out a lot made out of rot and the kids run and play and they have to use their imagination they have to be creative because when you give a kid a slide out of a traditional playgrounds that they go down at one time and then what's the next thing they do they want to walk back up there right and if you give them one of those two flies you find a child on the outside of that family that like spiderman why because it's not challenging it doesn't breed imagine a play it's very prescriptive you go up a ladder and down a lot is that how we want to educate our kids or is this how we want to educate our kids why are we the only one that's put one of these in the community and believe me we've walked around and presented this to a lot of people but the response is usually someone's going to get hurt it's not the normal they're going to fall this is license this is inspected we have the state of michigan inspector for the preschools in and he asked us why don't we have more of these we've got to get more of these out there there's nothing stopping us from doing it sandy it's woodchip it's rocks and it's a lot it draws one hundred seventy six families from like three counties to want to go to school there think about it so what can we do how can we collaborate and continue to push this fire there and do more in the nature response of i want to highlight a few things for you right now g m b helps build our preschool great partner of ours business partner they actually are working with us in creating a program where schools can contact them and they're going to begin designing and building these nature rich assets this is another step forward and more nature rich community we have partners that work with outdoor discovery center and you can do the same kind of thing helio's power helped us install this solar panel system so unique partnership with them this is saving our organization eighty four percent of our energy costs right now it's going to put about five thousand dollars cash back in our pockets this year just because we have that set up at our facility another nature rich asset we look at businesses in the community hayworth donated this property to us we turned it into wetlands look at the amount of water  sitting on this piece of property being held not going downstream not eroding our stream banks not causing problems with our water quality again in nature rich asset in our community partnering with business a story that i'm proud to shared  open the door on a little bit is a partnership we're forming with ready for school we have ready for school has this outstanding program that they launched a couple years ago called start school ready they spoke about a little bit at the breakfast if you're at the ready for school breakfast last week start school already started in may in the holland public school system it's a program designed to run for weeks in the summer getting kids into the classroom and getting the focus is literacy and kind of stop in that summer slide trying to get kids engaged and keep them in the education system but having a fun experience provided breakfast provided them lunch targets kids that american sit at risk in the targets again that summer slide these ready for school is now partnering with us we're going to work to expand the program significantly over the season are going to bring in schools and have them in our facility this next year and will continue to run the program and what i'm really excited about is that we're turning it into a nature based program so we actually are sending our staff to the holland schools to show them how they do it at their school on their playground you don't have to be at the outdoor discovery center and we're bringing other staff to the outdoor discovery center to train them how they can do it in our setting with our staff with the goal that we are going to make a major difference in this and i'm going to share another quick story as i'm on the slide this last summer we did a program with the city and zealand public schools a summer reading program and again same concept getting kids into the summer school program for several weeks in the middle of the summer to help stop that summer slide we saw at night and it was the nature based program so we actually had staff there taking the kids out side connecting their reading to the outdoor environment which again really important if you're a child from a negative background if you go home and you're told to shut up and sit down go to your room go watch t v that's the extent of the conversations you have and then you're expected to read a book how's that going to work but if you take a kid outside shore and sacks read a book about insects to them and ask them to write about it they'll write all day long for you because you're providing context you're providing meaning behind the requests that  that's what this nature rich school environment can provide so by doing that with this is elan program we saw a ninety six percent of the kids had no summer slide ninety six percent and we're excited to start to try to build and grow that program as well this is key stuff that we're doing ready for school key stuff they're doing g m b key stuff that they're doing helping us grow this program this is another great example this is actually just south of town here we were able what are the propert project clarity of thanks to the mir corp sixteen acres of land that kind of in that area you can see there you can see some water on it and that came to us and said we will pay to turn that into wetlands for you if you'll let us do it nature ridge somebody else paying for it not out there discovery center nothing to the home not a lake downtown to the state of michigan pays for our community gets better farmers actually improving drainage ditches in our community cleaning up why am i here ranting and raving about this because this is what's going to make our community better and it's more than just about being outside the more high tech we become the more we need nature the more we have to find our roots and put them in the ground so that we can continue to understand the environment around us so we can be better leaders in the community it's important you know what everybody is going to experience this differently all cultures all people they're going to come at it from different ways so you can't just have one site that's all we can put a park in the middle of town and say there were nature rich every community needs access to them we have to figure out how to connect every house whether it's low income or wealthy communities need to be connected these nature rich environments when we look at nature richness it is really it's in the light and self interest right if we make our community better if we give these positive consistent connections between humans and our environment are going to actually make our businesses better your employees will be happier and healthier and smarter if they're connected to the outdoors research proves them why would you want to do it and if you're a millennial or an empty nester doesn't matter both want this whole gamut so no longer is it good enough to just be good in the next i'm going to read this part of the think it's important the next generation or two or three will be longer those of buil institutions companies civic organizations and and entire communities of the compelling mindful human centered nature rich intentionality because folks the future is going to be lots of those who are nature rich why do you think people are moving to denver boulder colorado and places like that and it's happening and mass movements i have friends that work in those areas why do you think they're going there because they have these nature risk connection it's super important isn't about me up here trying to raise money it's about me asking you what are you going to do to help us become more nature rich because we know i have positive educational approaches an outcome to it if we do it we know that it will lead to active and healthy lifestyles which you all want right to have employees that's what you want and we know that it creates an environment in environmental respect conservation and preservation i think we all want that to do it's going to help create a vibrant strong economy been proven that when we have these nature it's communities that not only attract people it actually bolsters the economy around them and it's socially responsible business model you've actually heard the deal in lumber folks touch on a volunteer in out in the community helping others put that nature rich twist on it what are you doing in your community to be slightly more nature rich is there one thing you can do think about that and remember this is equitable everybody can have access to it and opportunity for everyone so we're like to say that this is the dawn of our next hundred year vision for our community and we're going to challenge everybody here there's some question which is what what is it that you're going to do and if your business it's not sustainable enough to develop that this practices that are just sustainable we want to see them be nature rich all right it's more than sustainability and the health care industry we've got to know that nature it should be part of your prescription to help the community it's free is free i can say it again it's free and it's effective it's been proven research i already cited some of the stuff education we need to use our environment so your students they can live and learn in a context that means something to them in the three and it's authentic and from the education perspective this is not just about saving the environment we're not trying to hug trees this is about connecting people to the world that they live in and when you're connected to it you're more likely to do the right thing for it and for the community and again it's that it's that in light and self interest that occurs so i end by asking is we open the door up to this what are you going to do  your business how are you going to join us in this effort there's others that have already told us they want to be a part of it we have plans that are in process building a dashboard for a community we have plans to put a marketing approach together around th like it's the right thing to do to draw people to our community and to improve it we want to put a lens on it but i'm going to ask one more time what can you do one thing can you do in your business in your home at your church your kid's school whatever it might be to help it be nature rich because everybody can start to look at one thing they do we will see a huge transition in our community operates in that sustainability measures that it has but also in the impact that it has on the lives of the people that live here or that we want to come with here so i thank you for listening to me and my little story about being nature rich this is just the beginning we wanted to share it publicly with everybody that we're doing this we're not asking everybody here to donate money to this we're asking you to get on board with a new way of thinking and less make our community the absolute best place to live work play and learn thank you it's a great question we are more than willing to broaden our conversation on this the reason we started with the size area that we've talked about is that we have to be able to put our arms around it right so we're not going to do something then do it poorly we want to do it and do it well so we figure let's stick our stake in the ground we think we're the best here we have awesome leadership day people like jennifer who are driving our economy in different ways all of your business people that support what we do so let's put our stake in the ground and started and i use the analogy a lot we like to make fires at the discovery center some of them burn out and some of them burn really hot fast and we're going to light a fire here and see where it goes so one more question so she asked what ages are preschool started as they're waiting lists are preschool is for three and four year old children and currently we will have registration the day to day if we did go it's a middle of the i think it's the fifteenth of january will do registration there will be ninety or so openings maybe eighty opening this in january so have room we'll see how quickly it feels good book please join me in thinking so we will hope you will stay everyone on have a conversation with travis after the event if you have additional questions for him speaking about a great community if you ran the business magazine that's at your place on page ten this month we did a feature article on the new holland documentary that certainly highlights our great heritage our nature of experience and where we are today and how we view because in your today on the way out everybody's going to get a free ticket to see the premiere of this movie tonight and tomorrow so tonight  twelfth seven pm tomorrow four and seven pm so here's my challenge for you go see the movie either before or after do a snow melt loop exactly one mile and you'll get your points for travis today being outside in nature ridge so it's a great way to enjoy your community and we have also told you that some lucky person today we're going to help you out with your holiday shopping so i've got a basket full of means you're going to draw one recipient for twenty dollars and west coast cash so those of you that braved the weather today let's see if you're in the room linda mcfadden what are said strategies come up linda so remember west coast cash available twenty four hours a day just go on line and they're printed it and it's a great gift for everyone if you weren't a recipient today we've got one more chance to win like us on facebook anybody who likes this this week this week friday we're going to drop three pm another twenty dollars gift recipient so look forward to that i'm in finally let's go for a walk today go sledding get outside enjoy our winter wonderland have a great holiday and then come back on january ninth we've got a wonderful panel lined up who's going to talk about talent attraction and its impact in our community so happy holidays and we will see you in the new year