We are preparing to welcome about 200 members of our 2013 Founders Council to West Michigan next week, and for the first time ever you are invited to watch part of the festivities.

We will present a live broadcast of their arrival at our World Headquarters in Ada, Michigan. The one and a half hour live-stream will air on May 14th at 2:00 p.m. EDT via a special tab on Amway Corporate Facebook page.

Thanks to new technology – our Amacam – we are able to share all the glamour and excitement of the event with Amway distributors, prospects and friends around the globe.

The Amacam consists of three high-definition cameras (two inside and one outside) that will showcase the members as they arrive to walk the yellow carpet and be welcomed by hundreds of Amway employees.

Attendees to this year’s Founders Council group come from 15 different countries and include 11 new Founders Council members!

So, mark your calendar and plan to join us for the celebration. (How many of our top distributors will you be able to identify?)

Post by Gary Wade.

As a health and beauty company, Amway employees get to be brand ambassadors of wellness, something that was recognized recently when Amway was honored at Michigan’s Governor’s Fitness Awards with the Outstanding Healthy Workplace award.

Amway was one of four finalists selected in the category among many nominees throughout the state of Michigan. Nominees were judged on criteria that included wellness programs and resources, policies and benefits, measurements of success, leadership support, community involvement and accolades.

Spend some time on Amway and Nutrilite campuses and you’ll notice the commitment to wellness. Employees are encouraged to stay active and achieve their physical and nutritional best through the Optimal You health and wellness program. This program offers nearly 40 physical, nutritional and emotional wellbeing resources, including a financial incentive for maintaining good health.

It’s those qualities that the Governor’s Council recognized. And it’s one more way that we are committed to Optimal Health.

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We are pleased to report that the major facilities at our World Headquarters did not experience any damage as a result of the record-breaking flood waters moving through West Michigan.

We are open for business thanks, in large part, to protective measures taken during our three-day closure. Teams filled 30,000 sandbags for use on our campus and around the neighboring village of Ada. Also, 86 concrete berms weighing 11,000 pounds each were used to build a flood wall.

Thank you to everyone who worked throughout the weekend to keep our complex safe.

Check out these aerial photos taken this weekend of the Village of Ada and our campus. You can also click here for news about the rising waters at our facilities, including more aerial photos showing the campus before and during the rising waters.

Our World Headquarters will be closed Monday, April 22, as we fend off the rising waters of the Grand River bordering our property.

Many parts of our community are flooded as river levels rise to heights not seen in more than a century.

Our thoughts and prayers are with all those who are affected, and we hope everyone stays safe.

“Amway was founded on the belief that, by helping people improve their lives, they could make the world a better place.”

So begins the message from our Chairman Steve Van Andel and our President Doug DeVos in the Amway 2012 Global Corporate Social Responsibility Report released today.

The annual report highlights the many ways our company, its more than 21,000 employees and more than 3 million distributors make a difference in the lives of others.

That includes building homes in Latin America, providing water filters in Haiti, building libraries in China and adopting schools right here in the hometown of our World Headquarters.

Corporate Social Responsibility is built into everything we do: our people, our products and our performance.

 Steve and Doug credit their fathers for recognizing the potential in this business for making a difference.

“They made it their mission to be more, do more, give more. And more than a half-century later, we’re still emulating their powerful example. … We’re awed by how far we’ve come and inspired to keep becoming more, together.”

Read the full report here.

About 140 eighth-graders received some hands-on job experience recently without ever leaving their classrooms.

Continuing longstanding partnerships between Amway, Junior Achievement of the Michigan Great Lakes and Grand Rapids Public Schools, students at Burton Middle School were visited by Amway employees from our World Headquarters as part of the Junior Achievement Reverse Job Shadow Day.

The employees told the students about their jobs and responsibilities, but also collaborated with them on real scenarios in their school.

“(We) were teaching the students about integrated marketing communications and how to put together a communications plan,” said Jerry DiTrapani, manager of marketing programs at Amway. “We did a group exercise to brainstorm the objectives for the upcoming Burton Field Day in May.

“The students had some tremendous ideas, which we will implement when we organize the field trip.”

The students also had some thoughtful questions for the employees.

“I wanted to know about the benefits of hard work,” said eighth-grader Victor Diaz, an aspiring home builder. “And what to do, if you put your all into a job, and don’t accomplish much.”

Through events like this, students become more likely to succeed in the workplace. JA’s research shows that students participating in programs like the Reverse Job Shadow Day have a better understanding of and interest in career opportunities.

It’s also a benefit for the employees who participate.

“Volunteering makes me a happier employee,” Sue Reahm, lead creative account representative at Amway, said. “It is great to give, and I also get so much out of spending time with the students. … I enjoy learning about them and with them and seeing first hand their hunger for knowledge.”

Check out more photos from the day at our Amway Facebook page.

Amway now operates in more than 100 countries and territories. Wherever we go, we try to connect with the community, and our hometown is no different.

We are pleased to partner with Grand Rapids NBC affiliate WOOD TV to share our stories of connecting to the West Michigan community. As Amway Chairman Steve Van Andel and President Doug DeVos explain in these videos, connecting with community has always been a part of the Amway culture.

A remote-controlled helicopter flew around the campus of our World Headquarters recently. While we’re pretty sure the operator was having fun maneuvering the machine, this was no toy.

It was carrying the Red Epic, a high-tech camera belonging to a crew from Brain Farm Digital Cinema.

We have more than 4,000 employees at our headquarters working to research, develop and manufacture our high quality products, and we want to share that story.

The team from Brain Farm came in with their flying camera and other equipment that is frequently used for elite fashion spreads and 3D IMAX features.

Over the course of two weeks they captured more than 300 still images and 90 minutes of video, including high-level aerial photography and detailed manufacturing close-ups.

They also documented our presence in the West Michigan community, such as the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel , Grid 70, and the Van Andel Institute.

Look for the wonderful results of this effort as we continue to share our story here and elsewhere. Meanwhile, check out a photo album from the crew’s visit on our Amway Facebook page.

We’ve already told you about the wildlife habitat that makes up 180 of the 430 acres at our World Headquarters in Ada, Michigan. But did you know that includes a 17.5-acre lake?

Fondly called Lake Amway, it holds 22.5 million gallons of water and has an average depth of 30 feet. Recently, we also found out it is home to some pretty big fish.

For the first time ever, we opened up Lake Amway for fishing to employees, their friends and family as part of our efforts to raise money for the Heart of West Michigan United Way.

Seventeen people signed up for the charity fishing tournament, competing for bragging rights in several categories. We won’t name the winners for fear people will pester them for autographs and fishing tips, but here is a list of the fish that earned them their honors:

• Quickest catch: largemouth bass in 5 seconds.
• Largest fish: 22 ¼-inch catfish.
• Smallest fish: 3 ¼-inch smallmouth bass
• Most fish caught by one angler: 38
• Catch of the day: An 11-inch bluegill that qualified for a Master Angler Award by the Department of Natural Resources.

At the end of the day, 294 bass, perch, catfish and bluegill were landed. More importantly, the event raised more than $700 for the United Way. Well done!

Check out a photo album from the day at our Amway Facebook page.

Nearly 180 of the 430 acres at Amway World Headquarters Campus in West Michigan are managed that boast more than 80 different species of wildlife habitat, including woods, wetlands and 8,000 feet of river frontage.

In protecting this land, Amway distributors, employees and leaders across the world take pride in our generations of environmental stewardship.  Since a photo speaks a 1,000 words, we thought a video could truly convey the beautiful serenity of our campus wildlife.

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